Last year about this time, we wrote of how far we had come collectively in the world of employee benefits roughly one year after the onset of the COVID-19 Pandemic. We reveled at how we kept on keeping on, what we were able to accomplish in the face of unprecedented everything, and admirably pivot with
As the year draws to a close, it is helpful for employers to pause to evaluate employee benefit plan amendment deadlines and other crucial fourth-quarter considerations, including: More…
According to Forbes.com, more employers are considering imposing a premium surcharge on employees participating in the company’s health plan who are not vaccinated for COVID-19. Whether positioned as rewards or penalties, wellness program incentives have become vehicles of choice for encouraging behaviors believed to be healthy and reducing health plan costs. For years, tobacco
In April, we posted about the U.S. Department of Labor’s (DOL) Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA) issuing cybersecurity guidance for employee retirement plans. That is, April 14, 2021. Shortly thereafter, the DOL updated its audit inquiries to include probing questions for plan fiduciaries about their compliance with “hot off the press” agency guidelines.
So, what
By now, plan fiduciaries and their service providers likely have heard about the DOL’s cybersecurity guidance. The Department of Labor’s stepping into cybersecurity in this way – a posting of best practices on the agency’s website – has left plan fiduciaries with some questions. Here are a few:
Today, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA) issued much anticipated cybersecurity guidance for employee retirement plans. This comes more than four and a half years after the ERISA Advisory Council, a 15-member body appointed by the Secretary of Labor to provide guidance on employee benefit plans, shared with the federal
Providing incentives for employees to get the COVID-19 vaccine continues to be on the minds of organizations as vaccinations pick up speed. However, concerns about privacy and the shifting positions on wellness program regulation has left many employers wary about implementing more robust incentives. According to Bloomberg, two GOP members of Congress are urging
Since 1996, when Congress passed the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), employers have been struggling with whether and to what extent they could offer incentives to employees to participate in certain “wellness programs.” The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s (EEOC) position on these programs has been a significant driver of those struggles, primarily due to concerns about whether such programs are “voluntary.”
On January 7, the EEOC proposed a new approach that may provide employers some certainty, particularly as many employers are wondering about incentives to encourage employees to receive a COVID-19 vaccine. The agency proposed regulations under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA) which, for those interested, provides a brief history of wellness programs, and EEOC’s evolving position concerning same.
A (Very) Brief History
In short, the EEOC stated its position on voluntariness in 2000, in its Enforcement Guidance on Disability-Related Inquiries and Medical Examinations of Employees Under the Americans with Disabilities Act: a wellness program is “voluntary” as long as an employer “neither requires participation nor penalizes employees who do not participate.” See Q/A 22.
During that time and moving forward, however, other federal agencies which regulated group health plans (Health and Human Services, Department of Labor, and Internal Revenue Service) provided a regulatory path for employers to incentivize employees to participate in certain wellness programs. A version of those rules were codified in the Affordable Care Act (referred to herein as the “ACA/HIPAA rules”), evidencing Congress’ intent to permit such incentives, albeit subject to other federal laws, such as ADA and GINA. The EEOC’s initial attempt to harmonize by regulation its position on wellness programs with the ACA/HIPAA rules failed when its regulations addressing incentives were judicially vacated. These new proposed regulations take a different approach.
The Proposed Regulations.
The EEOC proposed two sets of regulations – one under the ADA and one under GINA:
ADA.
Under the ADA proposed rule, a wellness program is a program of health promotion or disease prevention that includes disability-related inquiries or medical examinations. Disability-related inquiries, such as health risk assessments and biometric screenings, generally include a series of questions “likely to elicit information about a disability,” while medical examinations are procedures or tests that seek information about an individual’s physical or mental impairments or health. Programs that do not include disability-related inquiries or medical examinations (e.g., rewarding employees for attending a smoking cessation class) would not be subject to the ADA proposed rule. The rule also would incorporate essentially the same subcategories of wellness programs as under the ACA/HIPAA rules – participatory and health contingent.
Continue Reading Wellness Programs and Water Bottles, the EEOC Proposes New Rules under the ADA and GINA
One of the last things pension plan participants would want to learn as they get ready to celebrate the Christmas holiday is that personal data from their pension accounts may have been compromised. This is the case, unfortunately, for approximately 30,000 Now:Pensions customers whose names, postal and email addresses, birth dates and the equivalent of
As reported by CBC, B.C. Pension Corporation announced a data breach involving pension plan records after discovering a box containing microfiche could not be found following a recent office move. The box contained personal information (names, social insurance numbers and dates of birth) on approximately 8,000 pension plan participants. The company employed those participants