A recent Alabama Supreme Court case, LaPage v. Center for Reproductive Medicine, has made headlines and raised questions about the legal implications of providing in vitro fertilization (IVF) benefits.  During IVF, eggs are fertilized outside the body to create an embryo, and in the case at hand, the parents sued after several embryos were

As discussed in a previous blog, the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) is an independent nonprofit research organization that funds comparative clinical research, among other things. PCORI is funded through annual fees — provided for in the Affordable Care Act — paid by insurers of fully insured health plans and sponsors of self-insured health

Under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), applicable large employers (ALEs) — i.e., those with, on average, fifty (50) or more full-time or full-time-equivalent employees in the preceding year — must offer in the following year affordable, minimum value group health plan coverage to their full-time employees and those employees’ dependents or risk imposition of

The SECURE 2.0 Act of 2022 (the Act) contains several provisions that liberalize the rules for fixing particular retirement plan administrative mistakes that happen occasionally.  The IRS has a comprehensive program for correcting retirement plan failures, the Employee Plans Compliance Resolution System (EPCRS), including a self-correction program and a voluntary compliance program (VCP). 

Employees, especially those far from retirement, are sometimes hesitant to put money into their employer’s 401(k) plan, knowing that their money won’t be available to them if unexpected expenses arise. Congress and the Biden administration, recognizing the long-term benefit of incentivizing retirement savings, included two new means for plan participants to access emergency funds in

Hot button ERISA fiduciary issues remain a focus for investment committees of 401(k) plans in 2022.  From “excessive” fee litigation – including litigation over the duty to monitor the fees charged by various mutual funds made available to plan participants (the U.S. Supreme Court reaffirmed this duty in January 2022) – to the U.S. Department

The Multiemployer Pension Plan Amendments Act (MPPAA), the Employee Retirement Income Security Act’s (ERISA) progeny, can create significant unexpected liabilities for companies that have agreed to collective bargaining agreements (CBAs) requiring participation in and contributions to multiemployer-defined benefit pension funds (often referred to as Taft-Hartley Funds). However, a special exemption is available to employers in

The IRS just released IRS Notice 2022-04 that provides the updated fee for Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) paid by fully insured and self-funded health plans for the upcoming tax reporting period.

As we stated before, even though the original PCORI fee assessments under the Affordable Care Act were scheduled to end after September

News Flash:  There’s no actual statutory mandate that employers offer group health coverage at all, much less coverage for specific conditions.  However, federal law requires health plans that provide mental health and substance use disorder coverage to ensure that the financial requirements (like coinsurance) and treatment limitations (like visit limits and provider access) applicable to

On October 19, 2021, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals denied a widow supplemental group life insurance benefits of $300,000 upon her husband’s death even though he had paid the premiums for the coverage for four years through payroll deductions by his employer, National Oilwell Varco.  The case, Talasek v. National Oilwell Varco, L.P., appealed