#WorkforceWednesday®: New DOL Guidance - ERISA Plan Cybersecurity Update - Employment Law This Week®
Employee Benefits and Executive Compensation: Getting Ready for 2024 - Health and Welfare Plan Developments — Special Edition Podcast
The Form 5500: What All Employers and Plan Administrators Need to Know and How to Avoid Costly Fines
Compliance and Your Business: Managing SCA Costs and Liability
Nuts and Bolts of SCA
Cutting Costs With Employee Benefit Plans (Part 4 of 5) – Retirement Plan Costs
Cutting Costs With Employee Benefit Plans (Part 3 of 5) – Medical Benefit Costs
Cutting Costs With Employee Benefit Plans (Part 2 of 5) – Identifying Potential Targets
COVID-19 Impact for Health & Welfare Plans (Troutman Sanders and Pepper Hamilton COVID-19 Issues for Employers Podcast Series)
Recently, companies have seen a spate of class action lawsuits challenging the legality of tobacco cessation wellness programs and related tobacco surcharges imposed by their employer-sponsored health benefit plans....more
The year was packed with developments for health and welfare benefits plans. Our Health Benefits Team reviews 2024, from new data privacy rules to disaster tax relief....more
With 2024 drawing to a close, employers should review any actions needed before year-end with respect to their benefit plans, as well as some upcoming deadlines that may require advance planning. As the adage attributed to...more
We are pleased to present our annual End of Year Plan Sponsor “To Do” Lists. This year, we present our “To Do” Lists in four separate SW Benefits Updates. This Part 1 covers year-end health and welfare plan issues. Parts 2,...more
A new and unprecedented wave of class action complaints is targeting a common feature of many employer-sponsored benefit plans: tobacco-user surcharges. These surcharges are often part of a wellness program that charges...more
The September Monthly Minute highlights the DOL’s extension of existing cybersecurity guidance to health and welfare plans and also addresses the new HIPAA reproductive health privacy rule....more
Summer is ending and fall is rapidly approaching. For employee benefit professionals with calendar-year health and welfare benefit plans that means preparing for annual enrollment and year-end compliance requirements. This...more
In a recent article in Managed Healthcare Executive, Peter Wehrwein examines the trend of self-funding of group health benefits by smaller employers who used to depend mainly or entirely on fully insured programs....more
Welcome to our inaugural issue of The Health Record - our healthcare law insights e-newsletter! As such, we wanted to pull together our insights and pass them along to you. Our goal is to create a publication that is...more
To all those who work in the employee benefits arena, whether in legal, finance, benefits administration, payroll, tax, human resources, or many other disciplines, this is our annual reminder to celebrate the valuable and...more
It was a lively year for health benefits. Our Employee Benefits & Executive Compensation Group unpacks 2023, from the end of the COVID-19 emergencies to the much-anticipated Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act...more
In 2021, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) proposed changes to the Privacy Rule under the Health Insurance Portability and Accessibility Act of 1996 (HIPAA) that would significantly alter the current...more
This newsletter provides updates employers should be aware of heading into 2024, including an outline of the updated 2024 retirement and welfare plan limits, instructions related to the “gag order” attestation requirements...more
Open enrollment is rapidly approaching for employers with calendar-year employee benefit plans. Following are ten important issues for employers to consider for the 2024 open enrollment season...more
The US Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights (OCR) recently announced a settlement with a community hospital resolving an investigation under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act...more
After nearly three years of emergency measures related to COVID-19, the U.S. government acted this spring to officially end the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency and the National Emergency. Accordingly, the Departments of...more
With the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency (PHE) set to end on May 11, 2023, federal agencies have published FAQs explaining how the end of the PHE will affect previously extended deadlines relating to COBRA, HIPAA special...more
On January 30, 2023, the Biden administration announced its intention to make final extensions of both the COVID-19 National Emergency (NE) and the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency (PHE) through May 11, 2023, at which point...more
The Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA) of the US Department of Labor (DOL) has continued to be active in civil and criminal enforcement investigations of ERISA’s fiduciary duties. This blog post details two...more
We are pleased to present our annual End of Year Plan Sponsor “To Do” Lists. This year, we present our “To Do” Lists in four separate Employee Benefits Updates. This Part 1 covers year-end health and welfare plan issues....more
Fall open enrollment is upon us, and plan sponsors and administrators are preparing to provide their employees with the required notices related to their health and welfare plans. Notice and disclosure obligations for health...more
On February 18, President Biden announced that the COVID-19 National Emergency would continue beyond March 1, 2022, for up to another year. As a result of the continuing National Emergency, the “tolling” of several important...more
Notice 2021-01 recently issued by the Employee Benefits Security Administration, provides helpful clarification on relief from certain participant deadlines issued last year. However, it also provides “suggestions” that plan...more
At the last minute, certain suspended COBRA, HIPAA and claims procedure deadlines that were set to expire on February 28, 2021 have been further extended. As we discussed last year the Department of Labor (DOL) and Internal...more
Early in the pandemic, the IRS and DOL issued a temporary rule (published May 4, 2020) extending certain deadlines applicable to retirement plans and health and welfare plans. (See Deadlines and Commitments: DOL and IRS...more