Summary -
On June 9, 2022, the Philadelphia City Council passed an ordinance that would require certain employers to make available to eligible employees a commuter transit benefit program. The bill is currently awaiting...more
On April 19, 2022, the U.S. Departments of Health and Humans Services, Labor, and Treasury (collectively, the Departments) issued guidance which sets forth two separate safe harbors for group health plans and health insurance...more
The recently enacted Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2022 (CAA 2022) is best known for preventing a government shutdown and providing aid to Ukraine, but its more than 2,600 pages also contain language that revives a...more
Addressing motions to dismiss, a district court in Texas has found that a provider may proceed with its lawsuit to recover the full amount of its charges for COVID-19 diagnostic testing under the FFCRA and CARES Act from an...more
Summary -
To help individuals better understand the costs they will bear for medical care, the Consolidated Appropriations Act (CAA) requires health plan ID cards to include clear information about deductibles and...more
Summary -
Under a new rule introduced by the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021 (CAA), a health plan or insurer must offer an enrollee the opportunity to elect a transitional period of continued care with a provider...more
Summary -
Health plan vendors sometimes impose contractual restrictions on the disclosure of data that they consider to be confidential or proprietary. A number of new rules aim to foster transparency and require...more
Summary -
The U.S. Supreme Court this week unanimously decided an ERISA fiduciary duty case, Hughes v. Northwestern University, which will impact dozens of similar cases currently pending against fiduciaries of section...more
1/27/2022
/ 401k ,
403(b) Plans ,
Breach of Duty ,
Duty of Prudence ,
Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) ,
Fiduciary Duty ,
Hughes v. Northwestern University ,
Plan Participants ,
Retirement Plan ,
SCOTUS ,
Tibble v Edison Int
Summary -
New rules require group health plans and insurers to disclose pricing information in three phases. This is the third briefing in Ballard Spahr’s series on the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021 (CAA) and...more
Revisions to preventive care and screening guidelines will require health plans and health insurance policies to provide 100 percent coverage for additional services for women, adolescents, children, and infants, following an...more
On October 14, 2021, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) released a new proposed rule, "Prudence and Loyalty in Selecting Plan Investments and Exercising Shareholder Rights," that (again) seeks to define the extent to which a...more
Summary -
The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) released Proposed Regulations for plan fiduciaries on the role Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) considerations should play in investment decisions....more
10/18/2021
/ Climate Change ,
Comment Period ,
Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) ,
Environmental Social & Governance (ESG) ,
Fiduciary ,
Investment Adviser ,
Investment Management ,
Regulatory Agenda ,
Regulatory Reform ,
Rulemaking Process
The American Rescue Plan (ARP) will have significant and immediate impacts on employee benefit plans, employers, and other plan sponsors and plan administrators. ...more
Group health plan sponsors and administrators may soon need to introduce changes to their offer of continued coverage under the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1985 (COBRA). The House Education and Labor...more
The Office of Civil Rights of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has issued guidance clarifying how HIPAA’s Privacy Rule permits covered entities (in particular, health care providers and health plans) or their...more
8/28/2020
/ Business Associates ,
Covered Entities ,
Cybersecurity ,
Data Protection ,
Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) ,
Electronic Protected Health Information (ePHI) ,
Health Care Providers ,
Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) ,
HIPAA Privacy Rule ,
OCR ,
PHI
The IRS has released Notice 2020-50, which provides guidance to employers that have amended their retirement plans to take advantage of provisions under the CARES Act that provide access to special plan distributions, known...more
6/26/2020
/ CARES Act ,
Coronavirus/COVID-19 ,
Distribution Rules ,
Employee Benefits ,
Federal Loans ,
Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) ,
Popular ,
Relief Measures ,
Retirement Plan ,
Safe Harbors ,
SBA Lending Programs
On May 27, 2020, the United States Department of Labor (DOL) published its highly-anticipated Default Electronic Disclosures by Employee Pension Benefit Plans Under ERISA Final Rule (the E-Disclosure Final Rule), which...more
The Department of Health and Human Services Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has followed the guidance, jointly issued by the U.S. Departments of Labor and the Treasury, that extends benefits-related deadlines...more
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has issued new guidance, Notice 2020-29, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, providing for temporary flexibility with respect to mid-year elections made during 2020 under Code section 125...more
The Department of Health and Human Services has issued guidance confirming that the public health emergency brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic does not alter the restrictions that HIPAA’s Privacy Rule places on hospitals,...more
The Internal Revenue Service has issued frequently asked questions (FAQs) clarifying the special distribution options and loan relief provisions applicable to eligible retirement plans and IRAs found in section 2202 of the...more
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued FAQ guidance encouraging health insurers to relax their utilization management and prior authorization requirements in view of the COVID-19 pandemic while at the same...more
The Internal Revenue Service has issued Notice 2020-23, which automatically postpones certain deadlines affecting employee benefit plans. Specifically, any deadline that would ordinarily fall on or after April 1, 2020,...more
4/18/2020
/ 401k ,
403(b) Plans ,
457(b) Plans ,
Deadlines ,
Deferred Action ,
Defined Contribution Plans ,
Employee Benefits ,
ESOP ,
Form 5500 ,
IRA Rollovers ,
IRC Section 83(b) ,
PBGC ,
Premiums ,
Relief Measures ,
Repayment Options ,
Retirement Plan
CMS Adult Elective Surgery and Procedures Recommendations: Limit All Non-Essential Planned Surgeries and Procedures, Including Dental, Until Further Notice.
...more
Federal executive agencies recently published two rules, one final and one proposed, aimed at publicizing the various costs associated with health care. A final rule, promulgated by the Department of Health and Human Services...more
12/4/2019
/ Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) ,
Comment Period ,
Cost-Sharing ,
Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) ,
Disclosure Requirements ,
Final Rules ,
Health Care Providers ,
Healthcare Reform ,
Hospitals ,
Medical Expenses ,
Medical Loss Ratio ,
MLR Rebate ,
Out of Network Provider ,
Price Transparency ,
Proposed Rules ,
Regulatory Agenda ,
Rulemaking Process ,
Surprise Medical Bills ,
Trump Administration