PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Benefits Companion - Gag Clause Prohibitions
Changing Telehealth Rules
PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Benefits Companion - Health Plan Transparency Requirements
PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Benefits Companion - Group Health Plan Service Provider Compensation Disclosure Requirements
Podcast: What's New for Insurers in Mental Health Parity Compliance - Diagnosing Health Care
PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Benefits Companion - Employee Retention Tax Credit Expansion
Department of Labor Imposes Additional Requirement on Employer-Provided Health Services
COVID-19 Relief in 2021: What Small Businesses Need to Know
On-Demand Webinar | Navigating Leave and Disability Protection Laws During COVID-19: A Practical Guide for California Employers
COVID-19 in the Workplace - PPP Update, COVID Plans from the Biden Transition Team, Higher Education Relief Package Provision, COVID WARN Act Developments
PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Benefits Companion - New Round of COVID-19 Relief Expands Assistance for Employers
On this episode of Williams Mullen's Benefits Companion, host Brydon DeWitt discusses prohibitive gag clauses under the Consolidated Appropriations Act (CAA). While intended to promote transparency, not all gag clauses are...more
Well, it was good while it lasted. On September 27th, the Departments issued new FAQs regarding implementation of provisions of The Transparency in Coverage Final Rules (TiC Final Rules). ...more
The Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021 (CAA) added a requirement for health plans to document their compliance with nonquantitative treatment limitations (NQTLs) under the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act...more
This first part of a two-part series on U.S. regulation of artificial intelligence systems provides an overview and modern context for the existing regulatory, legal and risk management landscape for AI systems in the U.S.,...more
Certain provisions of the Transparency in Coverage Final Regulations and the Consolidated Appropriation Act, 2021 (“CAA”) require group health plans and/or their vendors to report information to federal agencies. On December...more
The U.S. Department of Labor Wage and Hour Division (WHD) published Field Assistance Bulletin No. 2023-02 providing guidance to agency officials responsible for enforcement of the “pump at work” provisions of the Fair Labor...more
Summary - The Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and the Treasury have issued guidance on how health plans and insurers may attest to their compliance with the anti-gag rules of the Consolidated...more
The Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021 (CAA) prohibits employer-sponsored group health plans from entering into agreements that contain so-called “gag clauses.” This prohibition generally restricts group health plans from...more
Health plans and issuers racing to implement overlapping price transparency and disclosure requirements in response to the Transparency in Coverage final rule (TiC Final Rule) and the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021...more
New regulatory guidance from three federal agencies that enforce private-sector benefits laws will make employers’ daunting 2021 health benefit to-do lists slightly - but only slightly - more manageable heading into 2022....more
This Client Advisory summarizes developments in the law governing employee benefit plans prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic. We explain what these developments mean for plan sponsors and highlight the need to adopt plan...more
The No Surprises Act (the “NSA”), which was signed into law at the end of 2020 as part of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, is designed to protect consumers from unexpected medical bills. The NSA generally applies to...more
Plan participants can be hit with surprise medical bills when they receive care from out-of-network providers. Sometimes, this happens when participants do not know that the care they are receiving is from an out-of-network...more
Participants in dependent care assistance programs (DCAPs) will get the best of both worlds (at least in 2021) under new guidance from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). In another of what appears to be a seemingly...more
On May 10, 2021, the IRS issued Notice 2021-26, which addresses the taxation of dependent care benefits, provided through a Code Section 129 dependent care assistance program (“DCAP”), available in taxable years ending in...more
The 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act eliminated the 50% deduction for any expenses related to business entertainment, amusement or recreation activities but preserved the 50% deduction for business expenses related to food and...more
State and federal regulators, Congress, and the plaintiffs’ bar are increasingly focused on compliance with the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act (MHPEA), particularly given the opioid epidemic and COVID-19’s...more
On Thursday, April 8, the IRS served up Notice 2021-25 (the Notice) providing guidance for taxpayers seeking to take advantage of the temporary 100-percent deduction for the cost of business meals, which was enacted by...more
On November 23, 2020, we posted about the legal deductibility of expenses paid in 2020 with funds borrowed through PPP (Paycheck Protection Program) loans guaranteed by the government and subject to discharge as debts once it...more
Earlier this year, Bret Busacker explained the FSA relief enacted as part of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021 (CAA) in a blog post titled “Bridge Over Troubled Water: 2021 Flexible Spending Account Relief in the...more
The Department of Labor (DOL) has issued guidance to state unemployment insurance agencies that expands eligibility for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA). PUA is a federally funded unemployment expansion that was...more
Following up on changes to flexible spending accounts (FSAs) implemented by the December 2020 budget bill (the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021), the IRS provided interpretative guidance of its own in Notice 2021-15. ...more
You might recall that in December 2020, Congress passed the year-end funding bill known as the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021 (CAA), which contained provisions that provide significant flexibility for flexible spending...more
On January 21, 2021, President Biden issued an Executive Order on Protecting Worker Health and Safety directing the Assistant Secretary of Labor for Occupational Safety and Health to issue science-based guidance for employers...more
The Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act (CARES Act) and the recently enacted Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021 (CAA) addressed tax issues related to the forgiveness of a Paycheck Protection Program (PPP)...more