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Contraception and Preventive Health Services Rules for Employer-Sponsored Health Plans: Sorting Out the Changes and New Requirements
May 15, 2018 WEBCAST
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IRS Provides Guidance on Paid Family and Medical Leave Tax Credit

"The IRS intends to release additional FAQs concerning the FMLA Tax Credit to address the following issues: [1] When the written leave policy must be in place. [2] How paid family and medical leave relates to an employer's other paid leave. [3] How to determine whether an employee has been employed for one year or more. [4] The impact of state and local leave requirements. [5] Whether members of a controlled group of corporations and businesses under common control are treated as a single taxpayer in determining the credit." The Wagner Law Group

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Austin Mandatory Paid Sick Leave Ordinance: The First of Many in the Lone Star State?

"Effective October 1, 2018, all private employers with 16 or more employees must provide 8 days of earned sick time (EST) to employees who work at least 80 hours per calendar year. Employers with 6-15 employees must provide 6 days of EST per year. Employees will accrue EST at a rate of one hour for every 30 hours worked ... Employees may use EST for their own, or a family member's, physical or mental health or preventative care; or for medical attention, services, or legal actions as a result of domestic abuse, sexual assault or stalking." Polsinelli PC

The New Massachusetts Employer Healthcare Coverage Form

"The purpose of the new HIRD form is to collect employer-level information about employer-sponsored insurance offerings, in order to assist MassHealth in identifying individuals with access to employer-sponsored insurance who may be eligible for MassHealth's Premium Assistance Program.... Despite that the new HIRD form is not required to be filed until later this year, MassHealth officials have reached out to a handful of Massachusetts employers asking for early compliance in an effort to test their reporting systems and procedures." Mintz Levin

Mental Health Parity: Compliance Steps for Plan Sponsors (PDF)

"To address the increasing risks to plan sponsors of parity compliance, this article focuses on the legal requirements, enforcement, and litigation activity and provides a checklist for best practices in auditing plan compliance. This article is organized into four sections: [1] summary of the MHPAEA requirements; [2] outline of regulatory enforcement actions; [3] discussion of recent MHPAEA litigation; and [4] a step-by-step checklist for periodic plan review by plan sponsors to ensure MHPAEA compliance." Epstein Becker Green, via Bloomberg Tax Management Compensation Planning Journal

Benefits Fragmentation Is Biggest Hurdle to Employee Engagement

"Fifty-four percent of organizations offer employees access to a series of separate benefits tools or platforms, each requiring a separate login. However, 40 percent indicated that working with multiple benefits vendors led to a lack of utilization, with another 35 percent noting technology issues.... [A] quarter of respondents report moving toward a single integrated platform[.]" Health Advocate

Health Savings Accounts (HSAs): Compliance Obligations Under the Internal Revenue Code and ERISA

May 30 webinar. Complex employer health care offerings can make it difficult to determine HSA eligibility. This webinar will help health plan administrators navigate this sometimes treacherous terrain. Discount for BenefitsLink readers .

When It Comes to HSA Plan Enrollment, Intention Is Everything

"[E]mployers that position the HSA as the core plan achieved more than double the average enrollment of other employers in 2017: 52% compared with 25%.... [T]his is based on plans offered for three or more years, and from 2015 to 2017 enrollment also grew faster in the group of core plans, from 39% to 52%, while it grew only from 19% to 25% in the plans not considered core." Mercer

An Overview of Nondiscrimination Testing of Self-Insured Health Benefits

"The section 105(h) nondiscrimination rules apply to any self-insured plan that pays for or reimburses healthcare expenses. This includes not only plans providing medical, dental and vision benefits, but also health flexible spending accounts and health reimbursement arrangements....If a plan fails one of the nondiscrimination tests, ... [highly compensated participants] will lose the benefit of the applicable tax exclusion and have the value of any 'excess reimbursements' included in their income."
Conduent

Workplaces Switch Gears With Bike-to-Work Benefit Offerings

"Though biking is not the most popular of all commuter choices, the number of people who bike to work increased by 51% from 2000 to 2016 ... Of those organizations that offer transportation incentives to employees: 44% offer on-site bicycle storage; 39% provide on-site locker rooms and showers; 19% offer bike-to-work subsidies, allowances or reimbursements; 19% offer bike/walk paths around the workplace[.]" International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans [IFEBP]

Evaluating Near-Site and Onsite Healthcare Clinics

"Establish a baseline ... Analyze available data ... Determine costs and savings ... Evaluate risk going forward." Findley

Cost-Sharing Reductions in CBO's Spring 2018 Baseline

"CBO and JCT estimate that gross premiums for silver plans offered through the marketplaces are, on average, about 10 percent higher in 2018 than they would have been if CSRs were funded through a direct payment. The agencies project that the amount will grow to roughly 20 percent by 2021.... [In] CBO's projections, higher gross premiums for silver plans increase the amount of tax credits paid by the federal government, thereby covering insurers' costs for CSRs." Congressional Budget Office [CBO]

Third Circuit Dismisses Employees' Class Action Suit and Finds Chemours' Severance Plan Is Not Subject to ERISA

"The court found that the ancillary rights granted or obligations imposed upon the VSP participants (a knowledge transfer requirement, restrictive covenant, non-disparagement provision, and right to reapply) did not make the VSP an ERISA plan because there was a time-limited obligation, it did not implicate ongoing administration, and it required passive and ministerial observation." [ Girardot v. The Chemours Company , No. 17-1894 (3d Cir. Apr. 30, 2018)]
Morris James LLP, via JDSupra

California Rewrites the Independent Contractor Test: What Your Business Needs to Do Now to Pass It

"Our colleagues in Massachusetts, who have been living with the ABC test since 2004, tell us that the rubber meets the road with the second prong of this test. It is often a tough call as to whether a worker's services are in the employer's 'usual business,' particularly for specialized functions such as marketing or human resources that a company may need to run its business, but may or may not be considered essential to its core business." Mintz Levin

The Benefits of Working for a Small Business

"Among the most frequently offered benefits were paid time off work, with vacation and holidays available to 67 percent and 68 percent of workers, respectively. Slightly more than half of workers (51 percent) in small businesses were given the opportunity to participate in a medical plan through their company. Defined contribution plans, such as 401(k)-style plans, were available to 47 percent of workers in small businesses while access to defined benefit plans, like pension plans, was lower at 7 percent." U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics [BLS]

IPOs and Spin-Offs: Take a Fresh Look at Purpose and Executive Compensation

"[T]he role of [executive compensation] in an IPO is to realign the interests of management from the purpose of one set of owners to that of another, as expressed through the firm's mission, strategy, and objectives. This shift in strategy and mission -- and how that is reflected in executive pay -- is as important to articulate and get right as the long checklist of legal and regulatory steps that must be taken for a successful IPO." Willis Towers Watson

Mental Health Parity Issue? Unequal Rules for Rollover to Next Year's Deductible Amount

I recently have seen health plans drafted by insurance companies (whether it is an insured or self-insured plan) that provide the same deductibles for mental health and substance abuse benefits as for medical/surgical benefits, but treat the deductibles differently for purposes of rollover. For example, the plan provides that costs incurred in the last two months of the plan year for medical/surgical benefits may be applied toward the deductible in the following plan year, but costs incurred for mental health and substance abuse benefits in the last two months of a plan year will NOT be applied to the deductible in the following plan year. This appears to be illegal to me -- certainly it seems to violate spirit of the Act and guidance issued to date, but I haven't seen anything (such as a FAQ) directly on point. What do you think? BenefitsLink Message Boards

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