A low cost payday loan is a cost effective way to get your hands on fast money. The low cost of payday loans flies out the window when you extend the loan past the original pay date. The loan may still be helpful, especially if it kept your payments going out on time. Having a plan for your money and following through is one of the best ways to come out of an online payday loan clean and unscathed.There are some people who think that their credit is pretty high until they pull their report. There is a high percentage of errors which are found on credit reports. If your score is lower than expected, comb through the information looking for mistakes. Human error is easily corrected and when it means a higher score and lower interest payments on your credit, it definitely is a job worth accomplishing.Some people are leery to check their score thinking it will hurt the overall numbers. Checking it yourself is generally a non-affecting action. it takes hard inquiries from potential creditors to lower your score. You will need to check all three credit reports. Each company works their own reporting meaning you may have errors in any of the three so checking one will only solve one problem not three.The credit bureaus want you to check your credit. They created annualcreditreport.com so anyone can have access to a free credit report every three months in order to keep tabs on what is being reported. There are many other websites which have tried to emulate this free version by offering a free report from only one of the three bureaus. Others will make you sign up for a low cost look but will keep charging each month unless you remember to cancel the service.Debt in collections gets sold between collectors. An old debt, which morally would make sense to pay, could possibly be past your states statute of limitations. Making one payment could restart the clock for the debt giving the lender another opportunity to take you to court. If the debt is older than 7 years, it should not even be on your credit report at all and you should forget about trying to pay it. Focus on maintaining your present finances.Opt for a credit counselor who can help refocus your budget to make your income work for you rather than debt settlement or the last resort bankruptcy option. Choosing an option which will make your credit score suffer more may not be in the best interest of your future finances. Whatever damaging reports the creditors will report is to remain for seven years. Debt settlement programs make take a few years to collect enough money to negotiate the settlement. Once the settlement is made and the creditor is paid, the report will reflect “settled payment” which is still a negative. Your bad credit could continue for another 9 years or more by using a debt settlement company. As bad as bankruptcy is, it could potentially be over faster than debt settlement. Having a second chance at your credit is a great thing. The key here is to learn from your mistakes so your fresh start is built on solid financial ground.Maintaining high balances or closing credit cards will also lower your score. A credit report wants to see you manage your debt. Do your best to maintain less than 30% of the available balance and rotate the cards to keep them active. You have to prove to potential creditors that you have the money skills to be a good business decision.Opting for a payday loan to help with debt is not a good decision. These loans expect a payoff which includes the fees in just a few weeks. Usually people who are already carrying a large pile of debt will struggle to pay off the direct payday loan on time. Use online payday loans sparingly and have a payoff plan before signing for the loan. Too many of these loans out eat away at your income. Keep them a low cost option by using them sparingly. The high interest attached to these loans can do too much damage to a struggling budget when not paid off on time.
Hawaii Employers Limited in Requiring Notice Under FMLA
The Hawaii Family Leave Law (“HFLL”) regulations make clear that HFLL incorporates federal definitions and interpretation of leave law under the Family Medical Leave Act (“FMLA”), unless federal law is less favorable to the employee.Generally, FMLA applies to all private employers who have 50 or more employees for each working day of 20 or more (not necessarily consecutive) calendar workweeks in the current or preceding calendar year. FMLA requires covered employers to allow eligible employees to take up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave for the birth or adoption of a child, to care for a child, parent, or spouse who suffers from a “serious health condition,” if the employee’s own serious health condition makes them unable to perform one or more essential functions of the job, or for certain qualifying exigencies. An eligible employee under FMLA has been employed by the employer for 12 months and has worked 1,250 hours during the preceding 12 months.Under HFLL, employers with more than 100 employees (determined in a manner similar to FMLA) must comply with both FMLA and HFLL. Generally, HFLL does not cover eligible employees that take leave for their own serious health condition, but only leave taken for an employee’s in-laws, grandparents and reciprocal beneficiaries. HFLL provides only four weeks of leave instead of FMLA’s 12 weeks. An employee eligible for leave under HFLL need only to have been employed for six months for the covered employer, regardless of the number of hours worked.Hawaii employers covered by both federal and state law must understand the differences in the two sets of laws, including the position taken by the federal DOL that, “where an employer’s usual and customary notice and procedural requirements for requesting leave are consistent with what is practicable given the particular circumstances of the employee’s need for leave, the employer’s notice requirements can be enforced.” In addition, the current position of the Deparment is that the “flat two-day rule” under the previous regulations has been rescinded.Thus, the determination of the adequacy of an employee’s notice is driven by the individual facts and circumstances, rather than an arbitrary two-day timeframe. The regulation itself also recognizes employers’ ability to enforce reasonable call-in policies. “Where an employee does not comply with the employer’s usual notice and procedural requirements, and no unusual circumstances justify the failure to comply, FMLA-protected leave may be delayed or denied” so long as the employer does not delay or deny leave where the employee provides timely notice as set by the regulation.In theory the employer is permitted to better plan for staffing and operational needs by requiring an employee eligible for protected leave to comply with notice procedures. Employees will be encouraged to comply with notice requirements knowing that the failure to do so could result in denial of protected leave.The FMLA regulations still leave questions for Hawaii employers. Hawaii law contradicts the new FMLA provision insofar as employers under HFLL are permitted to only “delay” and not deny covered leave for noncompliance. Thus, Hawaii employers cannot “deny” HFLL leave under these circumstances, which makes the administration of the two sets of laws potentially problematic for them.
Benefits of Personal Health Records
Gone are the days when people used to carry their health records in unwieldy files when visiting a doctor. The advances in technology made it is possible to carry the entire documents in pocket-sized devices like CD-ROMs, pen drives and now on dedicated websites who take the responsibility of saving and updating medical data. To keep a track of our medical history and share and use it when necessary, we need to create a personal health record. Let us try to understand what it is exactly and what it can do for us and how can they make our life easy.A personal health record is the consolidated information related to health; stored and managed by an individual. Today, they are also popularly known as, personal health diary, patient health record, or personal medical records. While the concept of this type of records is not new, it has evolved from a stage when these records were stored by the medical professionals and health care providers; to a stage where each person today is keeping their health records by using various technologies such as websites, personal health software and so on. The primary purpose of these is:o To keep a track on personal health ando To help the doctors for providing better care through the valuable health information.Ideally, it should contain every single bit of information related to your health. The information stored in it may differ according to the software or service providers, but any personal health records will contain the crucial health information. Some of the most common parameters that a personal health record contains are as follows:o Name of the patient, birth date, blood typeo Date of last physical tests or screeningso Major illnesses or diseases occurred in past with dateso List of medicines and dosages taken by youo Allergies and chronic diseaseso History of illnesses in your familyThis piece of information can be very important in case of emergencies and can save your life.Personal health records have numerous benefits not only to the users but also to the health care systems and physicians. A detailed health record can be used by physicians to take important decisions in time of emergencies. Some of the significant benefits of personal health records are as follows:o Empowering patients: personal health record allows the patients to access, update and verify their own medical records. With the use of personal health records, one can also set reminders for health maintenance services.o Improves patient-doctors relationship: this is especially true when you have a family doctor or a physician to whom you frequently visits. Doctors find it easy to communicate with patients who own personal health records.o Improves patient’s safety: As the patient keeps updating their health records, it helps them to identify missed procedures and services, drug alerts, and important test results.o Delivers efficient care: personal health records also avoid duplicative testing and unwanted or unnecessary services.o Cost-effective tool: patients can save huge amounts which are otherwise spent unnecessary on malpractice costs.o Privacy: personal health records can be kept confidential by using passwords. Today, most of us want our health records to be safe and secure in our hands so that no one misuses it. It allow patients to keep their health documents safe and secured.The list of benefits of maintaining personal health records is never-ending and they are slowly and steadily becoming a basic necessity to keep ourselves and our beloved ones healthy. After all, a small initiative towards health can reap great rewards. So, step ahead and create your Personal Health Record!