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[Guidance Overview]
Puerto Rico Establishes Paid Leave for Employees Suffering from Catastrophic Illnesses
"This bill ... defines catastrophic illnesses [to include]: Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS); Tuberculosis; Leprosy; Lupus; Cystic Fibrosis; Cancer; Hemophilia; Aplastic Anemia; Rheumatoid Arthritis; Autism; Post Organ Transplant; Scleroderma; Multiple Sclerosis; Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS); and Chronic Kidney Disease in levels 3, 4 and 5. To be entitled to this leave, employees must have worked for their employer for at least 12 months, and have worked an average of 130 hours per month during the previous 12-month period."
Littler
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[Guidance Overview]
Summary of Qualified Small Employer Health Reimbursement Arrangements (QSEHRAS)
"The QSEHRA provides a permitted benefit to eligible employees -- the maximum amount of the payment or reimbursement available to each employee. The permitted benefit cannot exceed statutory dollar limits that are indexed for inflation for years after 2016.... Unused permitted benefits from one year can be carried-over to the next year ... [If] the carryover amount from a prior year plus the current year's permitted benefit exceeds the current year's statutory limit, some portion of the carryover is forfeited."
Ice Miller LLP
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Annual Reminder to Submit Creditable Coverage Disclosures to CMS by March 1
"Each year, group health plan sponsors that provide prescription drug coverage to individuals eligible for Medicare Part D must disclose to the CMS whether that coverage is 'creditable' or 'non-creditable.' The disclosure obligation applies to all plan sponsors that provide prescription drug coverage, even those that only offer prescription drug coverage to active employees, and not to retirees. Calendar year plans must submit this year's disclosure to CMS by March 1, 2018."
Conduent
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Management Carve-Outs in Group Health Plans
"Employers value flexibility in designing their group health benefits so as best to attract and retain qualified personnel. One issue that remains perpetually murky ... is the legality of management carve-outs, whereby an employer offers certain group health insurance options or classes of coverage only to management or other highly paid groups. [This article] discusses some of the rules that come into play."
E is for ERISA
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[Advert.]
Online Learning Course: COBRA
![Sponsored by International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans [IFEBP]](https://benefitslink.com/bnrs/2016/IFEBP_COBRA_online_top.jpg "Sponsored by International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans [IFEBP]")
Even with ACA coverage easier for individuals to obtain, group health plans must continue to offer COBRA coverage. This course explains technicalities of COBRA, including who is entitled and how to administer.
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Does a New Study Underestimate Wellness Programs?
"The key take-aways from the first year of the Illinois Workplace Wellness Study: The program failed to reduce health care claims or lower plan premium costs, at least in the short term.... Advocates of wellness programs in general ... said that the first-year results didn't reflect the potential benefits employers can derive from encouraging healthy habits among workers."
Society for Human Resource Management [SHRM]
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$3.5M HIPAA Settlement Highlights Need to Prioritize Health Plan HIPAA Compliance in 2018
"When weighing the importance of HIPAA compliance and risk management for their health plans, health plans, their employer or other sponsors, fiduciaries, insurers, administrators and their business associates should resist the temptation to underestimate the exposure because providers, rather than health plans, have been the most common target of the majority of the announced OCR enforcement actions resulting in substantial civil monetary penalties or resolution payments."
Solutions Law Press
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No (Tax-) Free Lunch: Entertainment, Awards, and Meals Under the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act
"The Act did not change the exceptions to the general disallowance of deductions for expenses for entertainment, amusement, or recreation found under Code Section 274(e). These include, for example, food and beverages for employees on the employer's business premises, expenses that are imputed as income to employees, and employee and director business meetings.... [A]ny entertainment expenses that are still permitted due to pre-existing exceptions not changed by the Act -- such as employee business meals -- are now 100% deductible."
Ice Miller LLP
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Facebook Has a New Friend: Disability Insurers
"Social media monitoring is a growing practice in which insurers or third party investigators review a person's online footprint for information relevant to their claimed disability.... Some insurers use third-party investigative firms to run social media checks on people claiming disability. At those firms, business is booming."
Bloomberg BNA
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Benefits in General
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Mortality Data Show Declining Longevity Improvements
"U.S. life expectancies declined in 2016. This is the second consecutive year of diminishing life expectancies, driven by declines in mortality improvement over the recent past.... Going forward, [the authors] believe it is appropriate to assume positive mortality improvement for the population for most ages.... Mortality improvement will be greatest at older ages, albeit at lower levels due to some of the slowdowns noted."
Willis Towers Watson
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Financial Benefit Trends to Watch in 2018
"[1] More employers will add financial education benefits.... [2] Financial benefits will become more holistic.... [3] More student loan repayment benefits will become available.... [4] Increased attention will be given to helping employees with short-term financial issues.... [5] Employers will begin to look for ways to provide financial education to future generations."
Voya
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Chasing After Health Savings Accounts?
"[B]efore you rush to urge your clients to offer HSAs, there are layered complexities to understand. Remember that an HSA must be paired with a high deductible health plan (HDHP). A plan advisor who doesn't already have a relationship with a health plan advisor should get very familiar with HSAs' quirks, of which there are many.... Employees who are on Medicare or Tricare cannot have an HSA.... Your clients with onsite health clinics must be careful when setting up HDHPs paired with HSAs."
Fisher Broyles, via National Association of Plan Advisors [NAPA]
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BenefitsLink.com, Inc.
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Lois Baker, J.D., President
David Rhett Baker, J.D., Editor and Publisher
Holly Horton, Business Manager
BenefitsLink Health & Welfare Plans Newsletter, ISSN no. 1536-9595. Copyright 2018 BenefitsLink.com, Inc. All materials contained in this newsletter are protected by United States copyright law and may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, displayed, published or broadcast without the prior written permission of BenefitsLink.com, Inc., or in the case of third party materials, the owner of those materials. You may not alter or remove any trademark, copyright or other notices from copies of the content.
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