Workforce Bulletin

“ERISA – you’ll need a lawyer for that.” Our practice group’s tagline is meant to be a shorthand for the alphabet soup of laws that apply to employee benefits, including the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA). Employee benefits compliance has many traps for the unwary and is ever evolving. Below, we have provided a primer on current issues of importance in the employee benefits area to help in-house attorneys identify potential risks, mitigate them, and know when to call an outside ERISA lawyer.

1. What Is Old Is New: Get Your Health Plan Governance in Order

Employers that sponsor self-funded health plans have a host of complicated obligations. There are greater potential legal, regulatory, and fiduciary risks than in years past with managing health plans because of increased congressional legislation, increased Department of Labor (DOL) focus on group health plan compliance, and increased group health plan litigation, often by the same plaintiffs’ firms that have been suing 401(k) plans in fee litigation the past 20 years or more.

Now that the Supreme Court of the United States has upheld essentially all of the provisions of the Obama administration's Affordable Care Act ("ACA"), hospitality employers are faced with looming deadlines to bring their group health plans into compliance with the ACA's numerous new requirements. We have prepared for employers a timeline of the highlights of the upcoming deadlines for compliance with the ACA that apply to non-grandfathered group health plans.

Click here to access a copy of the timeline.

On November 17, 2011, the Departments of Labor, Treasury and Health and Human Services issued a set of Frequently Asked Questions About Affordable Care Act Implementation (Part VII) and Mental Health Parity Implementation.  In FAQ 1, the Departments noted that they received many comments on the proposed regulations concerning the requirement to provide group health plan participants and beneficiaries with a summary of benefits coverage that accurately describes the benefits and coverage available under the plan and a uniform glossary of terms (“SBC”).  The FAQs provide that ...

On March 23, 2012, another requirement under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (the “Act”)  will be effective-the requirement to provide group health plan participants and beneficiaries with a summary of benefits coverage that accurately describes the benefits and coverage available under the plan and a uniform glossary of terms (“SBC”).  These requirements were incorporated under the Internal Revenue Code and ERISA (in addition to existing summary plan description requirements).  Under currently proposed regulations, health insurance issuers will ...