What are Types of Employee Benefit Laws in the US

Employee benefits include a variety of non-wage compensation provided to workers in addition to their normal wages or salaries. The reason for employee benefits is to amplify the economic security of staff members, and in doing so, improve employee retention across the company.
Employee benefits in the United States include:

The Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act or COBRA: COBRA is a law that constitutes provisions to certain former employees, spouses, retirees and dependent children the right to buy temporary continuation of group health plan coverage at group rates under certain specific instances.
The Employee Retirement Income Security Act: This is a law that offers protection to all employees enrolled in plans such as health, retirement, and other benefit plans sponsored by private-sector employers. It provides right to information and a grievance and appeals process for participants to gain benefits from their plans.


TheHealth Insurance Portability and Accountability Act  HIPAA:  HIPAA provides protection to millions of employed Americans and their families, who have existing medical conditions, prohibits discrimination in health care coverage, and assures issuance of individual policies to certain qualified individuals.

The Women's Health and Cancer Rights Act: The Women's Health and Cancer Rights Act deliver protection to patients suffering from breast cancer and who opts for breast reconstruction as a result of mastectomy.

The Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act: This is one act that forbids discrimination in group health plan premiums on the basis of genetic information. It also prohibits group health plans from demanding genetic information or genetic tests.

The Newborns' and Mothers' Health Protection Act: To add extra joy after the arrival of your bundle of joy, the Newborns' and Mothers' Health Protection Act has rules on minimum coverage for hospital lengths of stay following the birth of a child.

The Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act and the Mental Health Parity Act: These are the laws that prohibit annual or lifetime limits on mental health/substance use disorder benefits that are lesser than annual or lifetime dollar limits on surgical/ medical benefits. This Act requires parity in treatment limitations and financial requirements for mental health/substance use benefits with those for surgical/medical benefits.

The Children's Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act: This is savior Act that allows exceptional enrollment in a group health plan in cases where in an employee or dependents lose coverage under Medicaid or CHIP or are entitled to premium assistance under those programs.

To learn more on latest regulations in US go to www.OnlineCompliancePanel.com

Mathematics of Developing and Proving Efficiency of Sterilization Process

Sterilization is the process of destroying all microorganisms and their pathogenic products. The different sterilization techniques include, dry heat sterilization, steam sterilization, radiation sterilization and more. During sterilization, different microorganisms in different environments possess different resistance to the destructive principles that causes the organism or spore to die (lethality). D-value is the term used to describe the amount of time required to kill or destroy a microorganism. The Z-value allows integration of the lethal effect of heat as the temperature changes during the heating and cooling phases of a sterilization cycle. To learn more on the mathematical means of developing and proving that the sterilization process is effective and does not generate a problem for heat liable products --- visit the link Mathematicsof Terminal Sterilization - Probability of Survival Approach -vs- Overkill Approach

What are the Import Requirements for FDA Regulated Products into the US at the Port of Entry

Importers of FDA regulated products to US must comply with the import requirements of the FDA and the Customs. All imported products must meet the exact standards as domestic goods. FDA is required to assure products are not adulterated or misbranded based on evidence. Here are a few examples of the productsthat are imported into the US: Drugs (human and animal), Medical devices, Biologics (including human cells and tissues), Cosmetics, Dietary supplements, Food and Tobacco.

The very first step before importing a product is reviewing the documents that proves the origin, content, certificates, storage, shipping conditions, destination, FDA approval documents, etc. The other step that needs to be followed are a) physical appearance: checking for the presence of filth, packaging defects, decomposition, mishandling or misbranding. B) Sampling: Collected, packed and shipped to FDA labs for testing and analysis. C) Analysis and conclusions: No violation or Specific violation.

A product could be detained if it appears to be non-compliant based on the above mentioned criteria such as improper documentation, dissatisfactory physical appearance, etc. Once the product gets detained, a detention notice will be sent to the importer and consignee sighting the reasons for detention. The manufacturer will be provided with the right to respond timeframe for response and contact information of FDA reviewer. Once the detention Hearing Process is been scheduled, importer can take possession and return. Importer can provide evidence to refute appearance or petition to recondition with FDA approval. The detention can be “overturned” or “stand (Refusal).”

Get a broader knowledge on importrequirements from Mukesh Kumar, Senior Director Regulatory Affairs and Quality Assurance at Onlinecompliancepanel.com.

Also learn

·       1)  Export of FDA Regulated Products fromUS to Other countries: Export Certificates and Other Documents
 

·        2)  Strategies for 510 (k) Applicationsfor Medical Devices Software

PUBLIC SPEAKING TRAINING FOR HR PROFESSIONALS

What is Public Speaking Fear and what are its causes?

Public Speaking Fear can be paralyzing… Standing in front of a crowd… You probably know the feeling. You can work weeks, learn the materials, and prepare the presentation. You try to ignore the anxiety. And then it’s the moment… You go to the stand… Your throat is dry, you begin to stutter… Your brain feels empty.

What is happening to you? This frustrating phenomenon is called Public Speaking Fear.

You are not the only one to suffer from this fear, or phobia. In fact, According to recent studies, average number of the population was found to have a serious fear of public speaking. Almost everyone has some degree of fear regarding public speaking.

Whether it is in front of 10 people or a full auditorium, the fear of public speaking seems to affect nearly everyone at one point or another. Even the most professional public speakers can become nervous before an important speech.

This impacts of this anxiety vary from just ‘not being your best’ during the speech, to not being able to even begin the speech, and in some cases even suffering from horrors and general feeling of incompetence.

Symptoms of this fear might be:

Rapid heartbeats
Shaky hands
Shortness of breath
Blank mind
Feel of freezing
Sweaty hands
Dizziness
Although you might hear and read about various reasons and factor that cause and affect Public Speaking Fear, I will divide the causes of this “fear” into 2 categories: Historically-based and Experience-based.

Historically-based factors

Imagine human beings in past times, when we used to live in small tribes. Those times encoded in us all kinds of fears, that helped humans survive. A human tribe would include between 30-100 members, usually with a single (male) leader. This leader was vital for the survival of the tribe and used to be the authority. Now imagine that one simple member of the tribe would arrange a speech in front of the tribe. The leader of the tribe would see this as an attempt to gain authority over the tribe. A common penalty for that could be death.

Public speaking used to be extremely dangerous in the past.

This historical reason is considered according to researches as the main reason why we are so afraid of public speaking.

There is a branch of psychology called “Evolutional Psychology”, which discusses matters like this. The most important thing that you should remember is that a major cause for your fear is irrational. You can’t explain it with the terms of our world. Only imagining the world as it was 10,000 years ago carries the real answer.

Experience-based factors

Now, in addition to the psychological reasons that cause this fear of public speaking, there are of course also factors from you own life that create it.

The way we use language in our life is called “conversation”, because when we speak, we do it with someone else. Our neurological system is so used to having conversations, that we just don’t pay attention to all the internal processes that happen when we’re speaking. Because it’s done automatically, we can focus our whole attention on the conversation itself.

Now, every new and unknown activity that we try to do, will seem intimidating, just because we are not experienced enough. We don’t know how to use our voice. We don’t know how to look at the people, how to stand, how to move our hands. We are even not used to the specific language patterns that we need to use during speech – and there is a different way to use language during a speech.

Another aspect of experience-based causes is a fear, caused by our past experiences. An embarrassing or painful experience while speaking to a group in the past can also create a fear.

So, let’s summarize so far. Public Speaking fear is this negative feeling that causes us not to be at our best during public speaking. It might even prevent us from making the speech at first place. We’ve discussed 2 main reasons for this fear. The first is based on our past as human beings, and that is the reason why we are sometimes so terrified about public speaking. The second reason is based on our own experiences of the world, which also create fears and beliefs.

Rational and irrational fears

Before moving on to dealing with public speaking fear, we need to understand how to view our fear.

Rational fears are fears that we can explain rationally, and the fear is of something that could cause real harm (physically or emotionally).

In general, examples of rational fears include:

Dangerous people (a person holding a knife, murderer etc.)
Dangerous situations (fire, earthquake, floods etc.)
Dangerous activities (Skiing, walking on a rope etc.)
Now, we can see that fear of some activities is considered rational, because it consists of real danger. Some fears are good to have. The fear itself is something positive, it helps us survive.

Irrational fears, on the other side, are fears that don’t help us survive, but on the contrary, prevent us of being our best.

For example, if we were bitten by a dog once, we might get the fear of dogs for our whole life. If someone frightened us during a dark night, we might get a fear of darkness.

As you can see, our mechanism of fear in not perfect, and we need to do some work to deal with our fears.

Rational fears should be kept and maybe even encouraged. Irrational fears, instead of preventing harm, in many cases can cause us harm. It’s normal to try and overcome irrational fears.

Is fear of Public Speaking rational or not?

Can public speaking harm you? As we said above, in past times, public speaking could definitely cause you harm. It used to be extremely rational to be afraid. Because this fear was rational for hundreds of thousands of years, it was delivered to us during what we call “Evolutional Psychology“.

Is Public Speaking fear today is still rational? Well, I could give you some hypothetical examples when public speaking could cause harm. If you speak in front of a hostile crowd, it might cause you emotional fear. If you’re a gangster and you try to speak in front of your gang members, you might even have physical harm.

However, in most cases, public speaking is completely harmless. There is no rational reason to be afraid of speaking in front of your class members; and what about presenting your new product in front of your clients?

Therefore, in today’s world, Public Speaking is completely irrational.

In short, How to overcome the fear?

In order to overcome the fear of public speaking, it’s vital to understand, remember, and believe, that the fear is irrational.

Let’s know 2 approaches to overcoming the fear:

Subconscious- working on the processes that happen in our brain that we are not aware of, our belief system, etc. Those methods are meant to reduce or even completely abolish the fear.

Techniques- Specific techniques and methods to help you with public speaking, even if you still have the fear.

To tell the truth, if you just use techniques, get more experience, and if you yourself can’t help you can go for training programs where you will get tips or you can listen to the records where experts speak. If you feel hesitation to go for training classes and sit and listen to the things, then you could take up the best online training programs, one of those you would find is here, track this link PublicSpeakingCourse and so – you will get better.

Imagine that your mind is a computer. A very complicated one, but yet a computer. It runs so many programs that we just can’t count. Some of them are in our awareness – they are conscious processes. The rest, most of the processes, are out of our awareness – they are subconscious processes.
Always remember this ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE.

Now, Go out Speak Up. Make your fear to feel fear.