Under the current administration, the Department of Labor has once again changed course on its view of permissible investing strategies for retirement plans, warming to crypto and private equity, and confirming their distrust...more
7/21/2025
/ 401k ,
403(b) Plans ,
Collective Investment Schemes ,
Compensation & Benefits ,
Cryptocurrency ,
Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Digital Assets ,
Employee Benefits ,
Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) ,
Environmental Social & Governance (ESG) ,
Financial Markets ,
Investment ,
Private Equity ,
Regulatory Reform ,
Retirement Plan ,
Trump Administration
Arkansas has become the first state in the nation to enact legislation, effective starting in 2026, prohibiting pharmacy benefit managers (PBM’s) from owning or operating actual pharmacies within the state. We take a look at...more
4/25/2025
/ Arkansas ,
Compensation & Benefits ,
Drug Pricing ,
Employee Benefits ,
Employer Group Health Plans ,
Health Insurance ,
Healthcare ,
Healthcare Reform ,
New Legislation ,
Pharmacy Benefit Manager (PBM) ,
Prescription Drugs ,
State and Local Government
In a move with potentially significant implications for entities subject to the Affordable Care Act, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has reversed course and now contends that Section 1557 of the Affordable...more
3/13/2025
/ Affordable Care Act ,
Bostock v Clayton County Georgia ,
Civil Rights Act ,
Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) ,
Disability Discrimination ,
Employee Benefits ,
Executive Orders ,
Gender Discrimination ,
Gender Dysphoria ,
Gender Expression ,
Gender Identity ,
Health Insurance ,
Healthcare ,
LGBTQ ,
New Guidance ,
Patient Access ,
Rehabilitation Act ,
Section 1557 ,
Statutory Interpretation ,
Transgender ,
Trump Administration
Since September 2023, there have been at least 25 lawsuits filed claiming the ability to choose between using 401(k) forfeitures to reduce plan expenses or the plan sponsor’s contributions is a fiduciary choice, and that...more
Access to reproductive health care has been a part of the national debate for years, and even more so since 2022 when the US Supreme Court issued its ruling in Dobbs overturning decades of precedent established under Roe v....more
10/28/2024
/ Abortion ,
Compensation & Benefits ,
Employee Benefits ,
Employees ,
EMTALA ,
Equal Protection ,
Health Insurance ,
Healthcare ,
Human Rights ,
Life Sciences ,
Patient Access ,
Pregnancy ,
Regulatory Agenda ,
Reproductive Healthcare Issues ,
Roe v Wade ,
Women's Rights
On Monday, September 9, 2024, the Departments of Health and Human Services, Labor and Treasury (the “Departments”) issued their final rule regarding the nonquantitative treatment limitation (NQTL) comparative analysis...more
9/11/2024
/ Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) ,
Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Employee Benefits ,
Employer Group Health Plans ,
Final Rules ,
Health Insurance ,
Healthcare ,
Mental Health ,
Mental Health Parity Rule ,
MHPAEA ,
NQTLs ,
Proposed Rules ,
U.S. Treasury
Seyfarth Synopsis: Following years of back and forth, new final rules were published by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) on May 6, 2024 reinstituting the Department’s interpretation that the prohibition on...more
5/21/2024
/ Affordable Care Act ,
Covered Entities ,
Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) ,
Employee Benefits ,
Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) ,
Final Rules ,
Gender Identity ,
Health Insurance ,
LGBTQ ,
OCR ,
Section 1557 ,
Sex Discrimination ,
Transgender
The agencies have finalized a portion of their proposed rules impacting so-called “junk insurance” regarding short-term limited-duration insurance, but deferred finalizing the more significant changes that would have impacted...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: Last week, the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that cryogenically frozen embryos are children and are protected from destruction under state law. This is the latest in a series of post-Dobbs judicial rulings...more
2/28/2024
/ Abortion ,
AL Supreme Court ,
Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ,
Employee Benefits ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Family Planning Clinics ,
Fertility Treatments ,
Health Care Providers ,
Health Insurance ,
Healthcare ,
Human Embryos ,
Internal Revenue Code (IRC) ,
Patient Access ,
Reproductive Healthcare Issues ,
Wrongful Death
Employers looking to enhance their suite of employee benefit programs, and focused on lessons learned during the pandemic on wellbeing, are interested in providing greater access to wellness tools. And, the vendors who...more
1/30/2024
/ Data Privacy ,
Data Protection ,
Electronic Protected Health Information (ePHI) ,
Employee Benefits ,
Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) ,
Employees ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Health Care Providers ,
Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) ,
Healthcare ,
Mobile App Privacy Guidelines ,
Mobile Apps ,
Personally Identifiable Information ,
Popular ,
Wellness Programs
Seyfarth Synopsis: It’s here for your post-Thanksgiving turkey hangover reading pleasure! The Department of Treasury and IRS released on Friday (in the middle of most people’s long holiday weekend) their proposed rules for...more
11/29/2023
/ 401k ,
Eligibility Determination ,
Employee Benefits ,
Employees ,
Internal Revenue Code (IRC) ,
IRS ,
Part-Time Employees ,
Proposed Rules ,
Retirement Plan ,
Safe Harbors ,
SECURE Act ,
U.S. Treasury
Seyfarth Synopsis: Fresh on the heels of the IRS Chief Counsel Memorandum on wellness and indemnity products, discussed in our prior post here, the agencies have weighed in with more formal and more expansive guidance...more
By this point, most people in the employee benefits space have heard about the MOVEit and Retirement Clearing House (RCH) cyber incidents, which could directly impact employers’ benefit plans. The MOVEit file transfer...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: Just like a bad penny, schemes promising employers ways to reduce their FICA tax burden, and maybe their employees’ income tax burden at the same time, keep popping up with a slightly different burnish on...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: The Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021 (“CAA”) contains a requirement that that group health plans may not have agreements with service providers that would restrict certain information that the plan may...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: At the end of November, the DOL issued final regulations on ERISA’s fiduciary duties when investing plan assets. According to the DOL, these final regulations retain the longstanding core principles that...more
Culminating a flurry of late June opinions released by SCOTUS this week, the court today in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization has taken the extraordinary step of ending decades of precedent surrounding the...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: The SECURE Act, passed just before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic at the end of 2019, significantly altered the retirement plan landscape. For a reminder on how the SECURE Act changed the retirement...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: In keeping with their recent more vocal stance on fiduciary duties, the Department of Labor has weighed in on the wisdom of 401(k) plans including an ESG fund or a crypto investment option in its line-up....more
Seyfarth Synopsis: Reminiscent of the DOL’s about-face on ESG investing by ERISA fiduciaries [discussed here], this week the DOL has issued a “supplemental statement” on its view of the use of private equity investments in...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: For those of you following the saga of ERISA’s fiduciary duties and ESG investing, we are nearing a possible finish line. The latest turn in the saga came when the DOL issued a new set of proposed...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: The DOL has waded into a long-simmering debate about whether audio recordings of phone calls between a plan participant and the plan’s administrator or insurer should be provided to the participant when...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: Avid readers of Beneficially Yours may recall that just over a year ago we asked the pressing question of whether surgical mask purchases could be covered under a health care FSA, among other “novel”...more
At the 11th hour, on February 26, 2021, the Department of Labor (DOL) issued EBSA Disaster Relief Notice 2021-01 (the “Notice”) to provide guidance on the duration of the COVID-related relief previously provided by the DOL in...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: The Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021 (“CAA”) offers significant relief for employers sponsoring flexible spending accounts (for a more detailed description of those changes, check out our alert). ...more