|
Health & Welfare Plans Newsletter August 21, 2020 |
|
|
||||||||||||||
|
Newly Posted |
||||||||||||||
|
Discussions |
||||||||||||||
|
This Newsletter:
BenefitsLink Retirement Plans Newsletter:
Message Boards Digest:
|
||||||||||||||
|
[Guidance Overview]
"Sonoma County is now ... the 10th California jurisdiction to enact a local emergency paid sick leave ordinance during the coronavirus public health emergency ... In addition, there is a statewide emergency paid sick leave requirement for food sector workers. Sonoma County ... does not address how the county and statewide requirements interact." Littler |
|
[Guidance Overview]
"Beginning January 1, 2020, all California residents must have qualifying health coverage (minimum essential coverage), qualify for an exemption, or pay the state an individual mandate penalty. ... [I]nsurance providers and employers with self-funded plans will also be required to report who received coverage under their plans during the 2020 calendar year to the California Franchise Tax Board (FTB). The FTB released a draft of the 2020 Publication 3895C with California Instructions for filing Federal Forms 1094-C and 1095-C for the state Individual Mandate reporting." HUB International |
||
"[E]xamples of benefit program provisions that warrant review: [1] Eligibility rules that provide benefits to opposite-sex spouses, but not same-sex spouses. [2] Eligibility rules that provide coverage to same-sex domestic partners, but not opposite-sex domestic partners. [3] Medical plan provisions that exclude gender dysphoria treatments ... [4] Enrollment forms that require enrollees to identify their sex, and the role that such an identifier plays in the plan's administration ... [5] Benefit plans that do not cover family planning benefits for LGBTQ employees if such benefits are covered for opposite-sex employees. [6] Short-term or long-term disability plans that do not provide benefits in connection with leaves for gender dysphoria treatment or gender affirmation surgeries." Warner Norcross & Judd LLP |
||
"Rideshare giant Uber is trying to crack the $500 billion U.S. drug prescription market. Uber Health, the company's nonemergency medical transportation service, announced [on August 19] a partnership with NimbleRx to offer online prescription drug delivery in Seattle and Dallas. The companies plan to expand the service to other parts of the country in the coming months." FierceHealthcare |
||
"Denying the couple's bid to reconsider the previous dismissal of their claim with prejudice, a federal district court in New York ruled that there was no error in the prior determination that Section 1557 does not allow disparate impact claims, but even if did, the couple failed to present any statistical evidence to support such a claim. And under the proper disparate treatment standard, they failed to plausibly allege that the administrator intentionally discriminated against them or that such discrimination was a substantial motivating factor in its decision to rescind the prior administrator's authorization for fentanyl to treat the wife's disease." [Weinreb v. Xerox Business Services,
No. 16-6823 (S.D.N.Y. Jul. 27, 2020)] Wolters Kluwer; free registration required |
||
|
Benefits in General |
||
|
[Guidance Overview]
"This article addresses many employment-related issues facing employers in the wake of hurricane-related disasters ... [including] federal laws ... [and] certain state laws, especially those in the areas most impacted by the storms.... [T]he information here ... may be helpful following any unexpected natural catastrophe.... [1] Military leave and emergency workers ... [2] Family and Medical Leave ... [3] Retirement plans ... [4] Group health plan administration ... [5] Special COBRA issues ... [6] HIPAA privacy requirements ... [7] Workplace donations to natural disaster victims." Fisher Phillips |
||
|
[Guidance Overview]
"The PRO Good Guidance Rule ... requires that the Department use guidance appropriately, transparently, and in a manner that is accessible to the public. The rule accomplishes this in four key ways: [1] By providing that, for significant guidance involving impacts greater than $100 million, the Department will provide for notice-and-comment review of the guidance; [2] By requiring all Department guidance to be made available to the public in a searchable database [on the DOL website]; [3] By allowing the public to petition the Department on issues related to its guidance; and [4] By limiting the Department's use of guidance to avoid potentially unfair conduct." [Also available: Fact Sheet] U.S. Department of Labor [DOL] |
||
|
Selected Discussions |
||
|
► It's easy to sign up and participate in discussions! Post answers, ask questions, create custom feeds and views. Join your peers (and potential referral sources or customers)—there is no charge. |
||
"Our client just filed their 2019 1095-Cs with the IRS. They were overlooked back in the spring (an extension to May 1 was filed) due to COVID/PPP things, and we just realized they hadn't been filed last week. No letter has been received from the IRS. Technically, a penalty of $270 per record could be charged. But do any of you know if the IRS is actually assessing the penalty when the taxpayer files them on their own, without the IRS having to get involved? Please give us some good news! And yes, the forms were distributed to the employees timely." BenefitsLink Message Boards |
||
"During the year, the plan sponsor received a reimbursement from the plan's revenue credit account for investment advisory and other consulting fees that the plan sponsor had paid directly. The record keeper issued a report reflecting all payments and recipients during the year, and listed the plan sponsor as a service provider receiving a direct payment. How should this be reported on Schedule C? Is the plan sponsor to be listed, with what service code and what relationship?" BenefitsLink Message Boards |
||
|
Press Releases |
||
|
The SPARK Forum goes Virtual
|
||
|
ERISA Benefits Law Attorney Erwin Kratz Named to the Best Lawyers in America© 2021
|
||
|
Most Popular Items in the Previous Issue |
||
|
2020 Benchmarking Survey of Health Savings Accounts (PDF)
|
||
|
Varying Employee Health Contributions by Income: Beware of Downsides
|
BenefitsLink.com, Inc.
1298 Minnesota Avenue, Suite H
Winter Park, Florida 32789
(407) 644-4146
Lois Baker, J.D., President
David Rhett Baker, J.D., Editor and Publisher
Holly Horton, Business Manager
Article submission: Online form
BenefitsLink Health & Welfare Plans Newsletter, ISSN no. 1536-9595. Copyright 2020 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.
Links to web sites other than BenefitsLink.com and EmployeeBenefitsJobs.com are offered as a service to our readers; we were not involved in their production and are not responsible for their content.