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[Guidance Overview]
Changes to New York Insurance Rules Provide Longer Coverage for Terminated Employees and Dependents
Excerpt: "Unlike mini-COBRA, the law also applies to insurance policies issued to large employers that are subject to federal continuation coverage laws under the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (COBRA). . . . Perhaps out of ERISA preemption concerns, the law regulates not employers but the content of insurance policies issued in New York State. Therefore, it is unclear if employers have any enforceable obligations under this law or whether it will be fully [administered] by the insurance companies." (Littler)


[Guidance Overview]
New HIPAA Breach Notification Regulations Require Immediate Attention
Excerpt: "Once published, covered entities and business associates will, as a practical matter, only have [until September 23, 2009] to comply with the new rules -- a very short time and one which will force them to work very diligently to comply with the new rules. . . . A covered entity and business associate must be able to identify, record, investigate, and report to an affected individual and HHS any breach occurring after September 23, 2009. This will require covered entities and business associates to update all their business associate agreements, train their workforces and establish their policies and procedures to ensure that they can identify, record and report such breaches." (Michael Best & Friedrich)


[Guidance Overview]
Delaware Prohibits Se.xual Orientation Discrimination in Employment and Insurance
Excerpt: "Delaware has added se.xual orientation to its list of discrimination protections, such as gender, age, religion, nationality and handicap. . . . Employers won't have to extend added benefits to domestic partners. It's uncertain at this time whether this law will require employers that purchase insured coverage for same-s.ex domestic partners to extend the coverage also to opposite-sex unmarried couples. " (Mercer)


[Guidance Overview]
New Standards for Breaches of Health Plan Participant Unsecured Protected Health Information
Excerpt: "The new regulations are effective for breaches occurring on and after September 23, 2009, and provide employers with much-needed guidance in determining: (1) whether a 'breach' has occurred; (2) exactly when notices to the media are needed and how they are to be provided; and (3) how HHS thinks the new federal rules will work in conjunction with existing state notice requirements. HHS does indicate, however, that through March 2010, it will not impose penalties for failing to comply with the rules . . . ." (Ogletree Deakins)


[Guidance Overview]
New York Laws Increase State COBRA Period and Age for Dependent Health Insurance Coverage (PDF)
3 pages. Excerpt: "On July 29, 2009, New York Governor David Paterson (D) signed into law three health reform bills -- one extending the period for state health coverage continuation rights from 18 to 36 months, one requiring insurers to offer continued coverage for unmarried adults through age 29 under their parent's individual or group health insurance policies, and one instituting a series of managed care reforms." (Buck Consultants)


[Guidance Overview]
Two Seventh Circuit Disability Cases Illustrate Glenn Conflict of Interest Analysis
Excerpt: "EBIA Comment: These cases hinge on the idea that a conflict of interest acts, as the Glenn case states, 'as a tiebreaker when the other factors are closely balanced.' When the record provides sufficient support for a decision (as in Fischer), the existence of a conflict becomes essentially irrelevant. But when the record presents a closer case (as in Raybourne), the conflict must be more carefully considered and may tip the balance." (Employee Benefits Institute of America)


Domestic Medical Tourism On The Rise
Excerpt: "Medical tourism has often been associated with medical care outside of the U.S. as a means for health plan payers to save on the costs of medical procedures. As this recent article in Business Insurance explains, however, the practice may gain popularity domestically." (Attorney Roy F Harmon III in the Health Plan Law blog)


New Enrollees and High-Income Retirees Will Soon Face Higher Medicare Premiums
Excerpt: "About 75 percent of people will be protected from the premium increase . . . . The remaining 25 percent of Medicare recipients will face larger than normal premium increases because the costs are spread across a smaller share of beneficiaries." (US News & World Report)


Federal District Court (S.D. Ohio) Says Requiring Doctor's Note in Three Days Violates FMLA
Excerpt: "The issue is important for employers because FMLA regulations address recertifications, but not requests for less formal confirmations of the reason for an absence." (Mercer)


Insurers Explore Savings in Overseas Care
Excerpt: "As Washington searches for ways to tame the country's escalating health care costs, more insurers are offering networks of surgeons and dentists in places like India and Costa Rica, where costs can be as much as 80 percent less than in America." (msnbc)


$10 Billion Government Subsidy Proposed for Retiree Healthcare Costs
Excerpt: "[A] $10-billion provision tucked deep inside thousands of pages of health care overhaul bills . . . could help the UAW's retiree health-care plan and other union-backed plans. It would see the government -- at least temporarily -- pay 80 cents on the dollar to corporate and union insurance plans for claims between $15,000 and $90,000 for retirees age 55 to 64." (FreeP.com)


The Precarious Promise of Post-Employment Health Benefits
Excerpt: "This article examines the increasingly troubled state of employer-provided health benefits for retirees. The availability of such benefits is a major determinant of both the timing of retirement and the financial security of those who retire. Despite the signal importance of these benefits to current and prospective retirees, employers have been steadily eroding their value and in many cases, eliminating these benefits outright. Such actions are often catastrophic for the retirees affected, especially if they are not yet eligible for Medicare. This article begins by explaining the economic pressures that have precipitated this unfortunate development, including the increasing cost of health care generally." (Social Science Research Network)


More Self-Insured Firms Seek to Cut Costs by Sending Workers Out of State for Medical Procedures
Excerpt: "Unlike foreign medical tourism, [with domestic medical tourism] patients don't leave the country. Instead, they travel to another city within the United States to have procedures for up to 75% less than they would pay if they were treated closer to home. One of the primary reasons some U.S. medical facilities are willing to be paid less is that they are generally compensated upfront, before the procedures are conducted, which enables them to avoid the arduous task of seeking reimbursement afterward from insurers and third-party administrators. The facilities also receive a single package price that is negotiated beforehand." (Business Insurance)

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Links to Items on Executive Comp, Benefits in General

[Guidance Overview]
Compensation Guidance for TARP Companies
Excerpt: "Figure 1 attempts to cull the 123 pages of regulations to a digestible format, comparing previous legislation or public statements to the regulations." (Watson Wyatt)


[Guidance Overview]
SEC Takes Expansive View of Sarbanes-Oxley Provision, Seeks Clawback from CEO
Excerpt: "A Sarbanes-Oxley Act case filed by the SEC seeks to have a former CEO reimburse bonuses and stock sales profits received while his company was allegedly committing accounting fraud, even though the executive himself is not accused of misconduct." (Mercer)


[Guidance Overview]
409A Failures: Correcting With and Without Notice 2008-113 (PDF)
24 pages. Excerpt: "Deferred compensation plans under section 409A are minefields of potential mistakes. Tax penalties for plan failures are harsh. This report explores how to correct failures in plan operation, both with and without the IRS program in Notice 2008-113. First, in Part One, we detail how to correct failures 'by the book' under the notice, and point out some tax surprises hidden within it. In Part Two, we explore how to correct failures when the notice's program is unavailable. We suspect these will be legion. The IRS might not think that correction outside the notice is permitted. If this is their view, we do not agree." (Attorneys Rosina B. Barker and Kevin P. O'Brien of Ivins, Phillips & Barker; published by Tax Notes and reprinted by permission to the authors)


Court Approval Ends Last Backdating Suit Against UnitedHealth
Excerpt: "Among other charges, the suit settled by the last order had included allegations the backdating practices left the company's stock artificially inflated and that the retirement plan lost significant assets when the UnitedHealth share price declined." (PLANSPONSOR)


Results of On-Line Survey of 80 State and Local Governments' Responses to the Recession (PDF)
2 pages. Excerpt: "More than 70 percent of the jurisdictions are putting a freeze on hiring. Fifty-six percent are freezing pay. Almost half are reducing their workforce. Almost one third are freezing pay and instituting a reduction in force. About one quarter are implementing a pay freeze and requiring employees to pay a larger share of benefits." (The Segal Group, Inc.)

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Webcasts and Conferences

11th Annual Best Practices Conference
in Massachusetts on December 9, 2009
presented by New England Employee Benefits Council

New HIPAA Breach Notification Rules: Get Ready for a Quick Effective Date
Nationwide on September 9, 2009
presented by EBIA / Thomson Reuters

( Click to post your webcast or conference )

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Press Releases

Employers Altering Pension Plan Policies, Shaking Up Fund Managers, Watson Wyatt Survey Finds
Watson Wyatt

Segal Comments on Pension Accounting and Financial Reporting to the Governmental Accounting Standards Board
The Segal Company

Trustee of Somerset, Pennsylvania, Profit Sharing Plan Ordered to Cooperate with U.S. Labor Department Investigation
U.S. Department of Labor, Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA)

Employers Face 10.5 Percent Health Care Cost Increases, Says Aon Consulting
Aon Consulting

New Venture and Strategic Alliance with Credit Forgetit, Inc. Launching New Product for VEBA
Two Bridge Debt Resolutions

( Click to post your press release )

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Employee Benefits Jobs

Partner Relationship Associate
for Decimal, Inc. (www.theonline401k.com)
in CA

Operations/Office Manager:
for ClearPoint Financial
in WA

Employee Benefits Supervisor
for Automobile Club of Southern California
in CA

( Click to post your job opening | View all jobs | RSS feed of all jobs )

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EmployeeBenefitsJobs.com (Sponsor)

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Handy Links:

• View Today's Active Message Threads
• Using the Web for Employee Benefits Research (hypertext article)
• Employee Benefits Library

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