PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Benefits Companion - Health Plan Transparency Requirements
Podcast: What's New for Insurers in Mental Health Parity Compliance - Diagnosing Health Care
Compliance Perspective: What's New in Healthcare Privacy
Preparing Employers and Employees for 2021 Benefit Plans Decisions
PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Benefits Companion - COVID-19 Edition - Employee Benefits Considerations When Conducting Furloughs and Layoffs
COVID-19-Related Guidance Allows Employees to Revise 2020 Health Insurance Elections
PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Benefits Companion - COVID-19 Edition - Deadline Extensions Impacting HIPAA, COBRA and ERISA
Employers: Benefits Considerations Post-Pandemic [More with McGlinchey Ep. 3]
PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Benefits Companion - COVID-19 Edition; New Opportunities for Health Flexible Spending Arrangements and Cafeteria Plans
The Biggest Obstacle to Value-Based Care
After Congress declined to extend certain relief allowing first-dollar coverage of telehealth services by high-deductible health plans (HDHPs), health plan sponsors may need to make immediate changes to preserve employees’...more
The end of 2024 gave group health plan sponsors several new lawsuits to watch in 2025. Gurwitch v. SAVE ON SP LLC - On December 26, 2024, a class action complaint was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District...more
As the healthcare sector continues to be a top target for cyber criminals, the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) issued proposed updates to the HIPAA Security Rule (scheduled to be published in the Federal Register January 6). It...more
On December 21, 2024, President Biden signed into law the American Relief Act, 2025 (2025 Relief Act), which funds the federal government through March 14, 2025, and provides certain disaster relief provisions and other...more
Congress recently passed the Employer Reporting Improvement Act and the Paperwork Burden Reduction Act (the Acts), which are now awaiting President Biden’s signature. The Acts, among other things, introduce several...more
The telehealth services safe harbor for high deductible health plans (“HDHPs”) will expire for plan years starting on or after January 1, 2025, absent Congress passing legislation extending or making the safe harbor...more
Although the Department of the Treasury, Department of Labor, and Department of Health and Human Services believe that wellness programs are delivering on their promise of improving health and reducing costs, one type has...more
A wave of ERISA class-action lawsuits is challenging tobacco surcharge programs in employer-sponsored health plans across the U.S. These cases center on potential fiduciary breaches, with plaintiffs arguing that surcharges...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
Anyone administering a pharmacy benefit program today knows that moving to a new model of service delivery seems all the rage. Deconstructing and reconstructing a system that is not providing the level of drug discounts,...more
HCCA's Healthcare Privacy Compliance Academy is a three-and-a-half-day interactive education program with a focus on the vast body of privacy laws and regulations in place to help you protect PHI and other critical data. Our...more
Employer-sponsored health plans would be required to cover over-the-counter contraception, including condoms and emergency contraception, without a prescription and without cost sharing under newly proposed Affordable Care...more
With just a couple of weeks before election day, the Biden Administration announced on October 21, 2024, that it was issuing proposed rules designed, in part, to require health plans to cover over-the-counter contraception...more
On September 9, 2024, the U.S. Departments of Health and Human Services, Labor, and the Treasury (collectively, the Departments) released much-anticipated final rules under the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act...more
The Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act and its implementing regulations and guidance (MHPAEA) prohibit health insurance policies and group health plans that cover mental health and substance use disorder (MH/SUD)...more
Last week, the Departments of Labor, Treasury, and Health and Human Services finalized regulations implementing the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008 (MHPAEA). Although the final regulations step back...more
Focused education for compliance professionals in the managed care space - If your role involves compliance for a health plan provider, don’t miss our annual education and networking opportunity devoted specifically to...more
A federal district court in Massachusetts recently denied a motion to dismiss a complaint filed by plan participants in the Cape Cod Healthcare, Inc. 403(b) plan, which alleged that the plan’s fiduciaries breached their ERISA...more
Family building benefits continue to be top of mind as employers and plan sponsors implement new benefit programs to support family building journeys for their employees. At the same time, there have been a few recent...more
Last week, former Wells Fargo employees filed a class action lawsuit against Wells Fargo and its health plan fiduciaries alleging that Wells Fargo’s self-funded health plan violated ERISA by paying its pharmacy benefits...more
At the end of June, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed a district court order invalidating the Affordable Care Act preventive services mandate for “A” or “B” items and services recommended by the United...more
The passage of the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (IRA) marked a significant milestone in Congress’s ongoing efforts to address escalating health care costs. While the IRA aims to rein in government spending on Medicare and...more
Earlier this year, a cyberattack on a leading healthcare claims processing provider had an unprecedented impact on patients and healthcare providers across the country. While group health plans were not directly targeted in...more