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Transamerica Retirement Solutions
in MI

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Growing Organization
in MI, NC

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in ANY STATE

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ASC's DC Plan Processing Steps for Investment Provider Plans
September 16, 2014 WEBCAST
(ASC [Actuarial Systems Corporation])

Forensic Underwriting: An Employer Roundtable
September 19, 2014 in NY
(Corporate Synergies)

Lost Participants: Welcome to the 21st Century
September 23, 2014 WEBCAST
(SunGard Relius)

ERISA Fiduciary Compliance: A DOL Plan Audit: Where the Rubber Hits the Road
October 1, 2014 WEBCAST
(Fiduciary Doctors LLC)

Health Care Reform Information Reporting (Code Sections 6055 And 6056) — Forms And Instructions Issued
October 2, 2014 WEBCAST
(Trucker Huss)

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International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans [IFEBP]

[Guidance Overview]

Updated HIPAA Business Associate Agreements Needed by September 22, 2014
"Covered entities and business associates have only until September 22, 2014 to update business associate agreements that were in place as of January 25, 2013. For those members of the health industry and their vendors that are still working to update these agreements, here are seven things to remember: Noncompliant agreements ... Minimum changes ... Consider addenda ... Consider the OCR template ... Sale of PHI ... Timeframes for reporting improper uses and disclosures ... State law." (Holland & Knight)  

[Advert.]

WEB's mission is to further the development of benefits professionals

We are committed to helping define the role of the benefits professional in the 21st century, and as changing market forces reshape the profession, WEB will help its members meet the challenges ahead.

[Guidance Overview]

California Enacts Statewide Paid Sick Leave Law
"If an employer has a PTO policy that provides an amount of paid time off sufficient to meet the law's requirements and may be used for the same purposes and under the same conditions as paid sick leave under the law, it need not provide additional paid sick time. However, employers should not assume that just having a PTO policy is enough, as the policy must be viewed in light of the paid sick leave law's accrual, cap, and reinstatement rules.... Employers that have employees who perform work in California are advised to take one or more of [the listed] actions[.]" (Littler)  

[Guidance Overview]

New California Law Entitles Employees to Paid Sick Leave
"In anticipation of these sweeping new changes, California employers should update their sick leave and record-retention policies to ensure compliance. Managers and supervisors need to be informed of the company's new policy changes and advised of their added responsibilities. Employers must also ensure that their employee wage statements for California employees comply with the new notice requirements." (Fisher & Phillips LLP)  

Mental Health Parity Act: A Litigation Update
"The Federal Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act ..., like many similar state parity laws, mandates that financial requirements ... and treatment limitations ... applicable to mental health benefits generally can be no more restrictive than the requirements and limitations applied to medical benefits. These parity laws, which are enforceable under ERISA, have been at issue in an increasing number of cases. Three district courts, all of which are located within the Ninth Circuit, have released rulings over the past few weeks." (Proskauer's ERISA Practice Center)  

Premiums and Employee Contributions for Employer-Sponsored Coverage, 1999-2014
"Since 1999 the Employer Health Benefits Survey has documented trends in the employer-sponsored health insurance market. Every year about two thousand private and non-federal public employers with three or more employees have completed the full survey. Among other topics, the survey asks firms for the premium or full per person cost of their health coverage as well as the share that workers are responsible for. [This graphing tool] allows users to look at changes in premiums and worker contributions for covered workers at different types of firms, over time." (Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation)  

CFOs Waging All-Out Attack on Healthcare Costs
"Plan design is one big area of attack, with more companies adopting high-deductible health plans. Another recent survey of large employers that was conducted by the National Business Group on Health found that 81% expect to offer at least one consumer-directed health plan next year, up from 72% this year. And 32% will offer a consumer-directed plan as the only option next year, up from 22% this year." (Treasury & Risk)  

Do Workplace Wellness Programs Work? Usually Not.
"The programs are generally offered not directly by insurance companies, but by specialist firms that tell employers they will reduce spending on employees' care by encouraging the employees to take better care of their health. Wellness programs have grown into a $6 billion industry because employers believe this. In fact, asked which programs are most effective at reducing costs, more firms picked wellness programs than any other approach." (The New York Times; subscription may be required)  

'Observation Care' vs. 'Inpatient Care' at the Hospital: Why it Matters to Seniors on Medicare
"Seniors must have three consecutive days as admitted patients to qualify for Medicare coverage for follow-up nursing home care, and no amount of observation time counts for that three-day tally. That leaves some observation patients with a tough choice: Pay the nursing home bill themselves -- often tens of thousands of dollars -- or go home without the care their doctor prescribed and recover as best they can.... Although Medicare officials recently began experimenting with limited exemptions, they have been unable to resolve the problem. But most observation patients with private health insurance don't face such tough choices. Private insurance policies generally pay for nursing home coverage whether a patient had been admitted or not." (Kaiser Health News)  

Health Plans, TPAs and PBMs Are Still on the Hook to Provide Contraceptive Coverage
"The new rules establish a second mechanism for eligible organizations to take advantage of the religious exemption from providing coverage for contraceptive services. Now, eligible organizations can use the process set out in the 2013 rules, or, simply notify HHS in writing of its religious objection. In turn, HHS or DOL will notify the health plan, third party administrator, or PBM responsible for providing enrollees in the health plan with contraceptive services at no cost for as long as they remain enrolled in the health plan." (Mintz Levin)  

Governor Brown Signs California's Mandatory Paid Sick Leave Law
"[E]very employer with a paid sick leave policy will now have to review their policies to ensure they meet the minimum requirements of the law. Many paid sick leave policies, for example, exclude part-time, temporary, and seasonal employees from paid sick leave benefits. The new law provides no such limitation and will place employers with such limited policies squarely in violation of the law." (Ogletree Deakins)  

Does Apple's HealthKit Signal the End of Employer-Based Health Insurance?
"Apple is launching ... a mobile heath tracking system that will enable people to gather information on their health via their iPhone or soon-to-be released Apple Watch and, in time, automatically route that information to an online health record that can be accessed by their primary care physician immediately. While it may take some time to create this portable, web, and mobile health information environment, ... what Apple is doing is one of three main drivers that will move health insurance from being employer based to consumer based. This may forever change the way health care is financed and delivered." (Employee Benefit News)  

[Opinion]

Support Builds for Employee Health Care Protection Act Ahead of House Vote
"The House of Representatives will vote [on Sept. 11] on H.R. 3522, the Employee Health Care Protection Act, authored by Rep. Bill Cassidy (R-LA). The bill helps to protect American workers from the president's #BrokenPromises by allowing health insurance plans currently available on the group market to continue to be offered through 2019. Ahead of the vote, a wide range of stakeholders voiced support for the bill and praised the committee for working to prevent the administration from doing any more damage to our nation's health care." (Energy & Commerce Committee, U.S. House of Representatives)  

[Official Guidance]

IRS Instructions for Form 2848 (Rev. July 2014) (PDF)
"Use Form 2848 to authorize an individual to represent you before the IRS. See Substitute Form 2848 ... for information about using a power of attorney other than a Form 2848 to authorize an individual to represent you before the IRS. The individual you authorize must be eligible to practice before the IRS." [Revision date is July, 2014; released online September 9, 2014.] (Internal Revenue Service [IRS])  

Administrative Exhaustion, Futility and the Last Refuge of the Scoundrel
"The case nicely highlights how high the bar is to prove futility in this context, and raises the question of what then would be enough to prove futility. Many lawyers often find that a hard question to answer, for the specific reason that most lawyers have never actually had a case in which the opportunity to recover benefits voluntarily from a plan was so futile that, in fact, futility could be proven for these purposes." [Carson v. Int'l Headquarters Pension and Beneficiaries Plan of the Int'l Union of Operating Engineers, No. 5:14-cv-11617 (S.D.W.V. Sept. 9, 2014)] (Stephen Rosenberg of The Wagner Law Group)  

New IRS Publication Helps You Find out if You Qualify for a Health Coverage Exemption
IRS [Internal Revenue Service]

Atlantic Pension Services Inc. is Certified to Industry Best Practices
Centre for Fiduciary Excellence [CEFEX]

New Book by James Russell Now Available: Social Insecurity: 401(k)s and the Retirement Crisis
Beacon Press

Navera Offers Guidance for Education and Decision Support Tools to Boost Engagement in Voluntary Benefits
Navera

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