If you are a large employer required to provide health plan coverage to avoid the shared responsibility penalties, it is prudent to reevaluate your contribution structure each year before open enrollment to ensure that your plan is still “affordable.” Most employers were diligent about calculating affordability in the first few years ...
Earlier this week, members of health plans for two different employers filed a potential class action lawsuit against United Healthcare regarding cross-plan offsetting. This case comes nearly 18 months after United lost a similar case before the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals brought by care providers. This new case, Scott et al. v ...
Earlier this month, the Department of Labor (“DOL”) and Health and Human Services (“HHS”) released a proposed rule which provides more flexibility for grandfathered health plans to change cost-sharing requirements. A grandfathered health plan is generally a group health plan that has continuously provided coverage since March 23 ...
In our March blog post, we discussed the relief provisions for participants in defined contribution plans granted by Congress through the CARES Act, including coronavirus-related distributions (CRDs). The IRS has recently issued Notice 2020-50, which amended the definition of qualified individual (as discussed in our prior blog post) and ...
Last month, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”) issued its final rule under Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act that rescinded certain protections afforded to LGBTQ individuals and persons with limited English proficiency. In the same rule, HHS also removed burdensome disclosure requirements for health plans. Only ...
The economic downturn created by COVID-19 has caused many employers to reduce costs across the board, including making cuts to employee compensation through benefit plans. Some employers have considered making mid-year reductions to safe harbor contributions, but are either prohibited or uncertain if those amendments are permissible under ...