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Legal Developments Impacting Health & Welfare Plans 2024 Year-End Update
Click here for a printer-friendly version. HHS continues to assess penalties for HIPAA violations, including a $4.75 million settlement with a medical center over an employee’s sale of protected health information (PHI) to identity thieves. HHS also assessed penalties for failures to timely give individuals access to their health information. New HHS regulations strengthen the privacy of PHI relating to reproductive health care, such as by prohibiting disclosure of PHI to law enforcement investigating a [...]
Legal Developments Impacting Retirement Plans 2024 Year-End Update
Click here for a printer-friendly version. As discussed in our prior January 2024 bulletin, plaintiffs’ class action firms have taken aim at common and longstanding practices of 401(k) plans regarding the use of forfeitures to reduce employer contributions, with over two dozen lawsuits filed against large corporate plans in the last year alone. These cases are in their early stages and court rulings to date have been mixed, with courts granting defendants’ motions to dismiss [...]
Summary of SECURE Act 2.0 Guidance Released in 2023
Click here for a printer-friendly version. The SECURE 2.0 Act of 2022 (“SECURE Act 2.0”) was signed into law on December 29, 2022 as part of the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023.Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2023, Pub. L. 117-328, 136 Stat. 4,459 (2022). SECURE Act 2.0 refers specifically to Division T of this session law. SECURE Act 2.0 builds on the Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Act of 2019 (the “SECURE Act”) and aims [...]
Lawsuits and Proposed IRS Regulations Conflict on the Use of Forfeitures in Defined Contribution Plans
Click here for a printer-friendly version. For decades IRS regulations and guidance have allowed employers with qualified 401(k) plans wide discretion to decide how to use plan account forfeituresForfeitures may include, for example, non-vested employer contributions in a former employee’s 401(k) account which the employee forfeited after a termination of employment. —including paying plan expenses, reducing an employer’s future contributions, or re-allocating to other participants, in accordance with the plan terms.For example, the House Conference [...]
State PBM Legislation Impacting ERISA Self-Funded Group Health Plans
Click here for a printer-friendly version. State legislatures have increasingly regulated Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBMs) in the wake of Rutledge v. Pharmaceutical Care Management Association,Rutledge v. Pharmaceutical Care Management Ass’n, 592 U.S. 80 (2020). a 2020 Supreme Court decision holding that ERISA did not prevent Arkansas from requiring PBMs to reimburse pharmacies at a rate equal to or greater than a pharmacy’s acquisition cost. More than half of the states have enacted laws regulating [...]
Legal Developments Impacting Retirement Plans 2023 Year-End Update
Click here for a printer-friendly version. Federal courts are conflicted on the elements necessary to prove that ERISA plan fees paid to a service provider are a prohibited transaction. Recent decisions from the Second and Ninth Circuits added to the circuit split, increasing the likelihood the Supreme Court will weigh in.Cunningham v. Cornell University, 86 F.4th 961 (2d Cir. 2023); Bugielski v. AT&T Services, Inc., 76 F.4th 894 (9th Cir. 2023). Regardless, plan fiduciaries [...]
Legal Developments Impacting Health & Welfare Plans 2023 Year-End Update
Click here for a printer-friendly version. A federal district court in Texas previously ruled that the United States Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) lacked authority to determine which services are covered by the Affordable Care Act’s preventive care mandate, and this year the court invalidated all agency action (back to March 23, 2010, and going forward) to implement or enforce preventive care coverage requirements in response to an “A” or “B” rating by the USPSTF.Braidwood [...]
Healthcare Transparency Timing Requirements
Click here for a printer-friendly version. In recent years, Congress and federal agencies have pushed for greater transparency into the cost of healthcare through the passage of the 2021 Consolidated Appropriations Act and Transparency in Coverage rules.Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021, Pub. L. No. 116-260, 134 Stat. 1182 (2020); Final Rule on Transparency in Coverage, 85 Fed. Reg. 72,158 (Nov. 12, 2020). Group health plans must now disclose certain healthcare costs and other information to [...]
10th Circuit Invalidates Plan’s Arbitration Term
In the last several years, courts have grappled with ERISA plan terms that require participants to arbitrate their claims on an individual basis. Recently, the 10th Circuit invalidated a plan’s arbitration term in Harrison v. Envision Management Holding because it would have restricted the statutory ERISA remedies participants were otherwise entitled to seek.
Summary of Key Changes Under SECURE Act 2.0
The SECURE 2.0 Act of 2022 (“SECURE 2.0” or “the Act”) was signed into law on December 29, 2022 as part of the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023. SECURE 2.0 builds on the Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Act of 2019 (the “SECURE Act”) and aims to modernize the retirement system, encourage additional retirement savings, and ease administrative requirements. Summarized below are the Act’s key provisions that apply to retirement plans (note that not all provisions of the Act are addressed). The first section of this bulletin covers changes that impact plan design, and the second covers changes that are more administrative in nature.