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Children's Medical Center of Dallas and Alliance Coal in Tulsa Receive SouthWest Benefits Association's Best of Class Benefits Solution Awards

Posted on: Tuesday, 10 June 2008, 12:00 CDT

DALLAS, June 10 /PRNewswire/ -- The SouthWest Benefits Association (SWBA), a regional, non-profit established to foster relationships and support the educational growth of employee benefits professionals, honored Children's Medical Center of Dallas and Tulsa, Okla.-based Alliance Coal, LLC with its Third Annual Best of Class Benefits Solution Awards for innovative employee benefits programs. Two categories of awards -- retirement and health benefits -- were recently presented at SWBA's 33rd Annual Conference in Austin.

The 2008 Best of Class Retirement Benefits Solution Award was presented to Children's Medical Center of Dallas for its new specially-designed Retirement Choice program. The hospital employs more than 4,200 and was named by U.S. News & World Report as one of the nation's top pediatric providers.

"At Children's we recognize that attracting and retaining high quality employees is integral to our success," said Stephen Dorso, manager, Employee Benefits, for Children's Medical Center of Dallas. "Faced with escalating pension costs, we proceeded carefully to develop a program that would continue to meet the retirement needs of our employees, yet help the organization retain its ability to provide competitive benefits."

Retirement plans can be complicated and difficult to understand and Children's partnered with Fidelity Investments to design, communicate and implement the innovative program. Measurement of the program's effectiveness has shown cost savings, increased employee participation and improvement in employees' satisfaction with the benefits they receive.

The Best in Class Health Benefits Solution Award was presented to Alliance Coal for its Health Transformation program. Alliance Coal set out to get more value for its health plan dollars while improving the health of its employees.

"Our goal was to more efficiently use our benefits budget to encourage health care that improves the overall health of our employees and not just sick care," said Paul Mackey, general manager, Human Resources Administration for Alliance Coal. "We provide a unique combination of medical and epidemiological-based health resources to our employees through on-site medical professionals, disease management and prevention programs, and nutrition and wellness services to measurably improve the health and quality of life for participants."

A wholly owned subsidiary of Alliance Resource Partners, L.P. (ARLP), Alliance Coal operates eight underground coal mining complexes in five states, employs 2,600, and has been recognized annually since 2003 by BusinessWeek as one of America's top 100 hot growth companies to watch.

The two winners were chosen by an Awards Selection Committee led by Judy Mesecher, director of Retirement Benefits for Clear Channel Worldwide, who chairs the SWBA Membership Committee.

ABOUT SWBA

Founded in 1975, the SouthWest Benefits Association is a regional, non-profit organization designed to foster relationships and support the educational growth of professionals in employee benefits. Members represent a wide range of specialties, including corporate human resources, benefit plan administration, financial management, investment counseling, third party administration, law, accounting, actuarial, and consulting. Through an annual schedule of professional educational conferences and workshops, SWBA provides its members the opportunity for discussion of a wide range of issues confronting professionals in the complex and increasingly regulated field of employee benefits. http://www.swba.org/

SouthWest Benefits Association

CONTACT: Cary Conway, +1-972-731-9242, cary@conwaycommunication.com, forSouthWest Benefits Association

Web Site: http://www.swba.org/

Source: PRNewswire

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