How Is Merrill Lynch Limiting Health Costs?
By Expanding Benefits – Its Generous Plan Includes More Scrutiny of Care Provided to Employees – Exercise Pool Gets an OK Wall Street Journal; New York, NY; May 23,2000; By Carol Gentry; Edition: Eastern edition Start Page: Al ISSN: 00999660 Subject Terms: Cost reduction Employee benefits Health care expenditures Companies: Merrill Lynch & Co Excerpted Text; Emphasis, SouthWest Health Alliance (SWHA) Copyright Dow Jones & Company Inc May 23, 2000 There are health plans, and there are health plans. And then, there is Merrill Lynch & Co.’s health plan. By just about any standard, the financial-services giant is generous in what it covers. For example, it sets no limits on how long its employees can get care in a mental hospital – an approach virtually unheard of elsewhere. The company regularly retools its coverage to accommodate special needs. For a secretary rendered mute by Lou Gehrig’s disease, it approved a synthetic speech machine; that costs $6,000. Even when Merrill Lynch turns d
