"Beginning January 1, 2024, certain employers located within designated Illinois counties and townships will be required to provide employees a 'pre-tax commuter benefit.' ... [E]mployers must allow covered employees to use pre-tax dollars for the purchase of a transit pass through payroll deduction. A transit pass is any pass, token, care card, and the like entitling the employee to take public transit."  MORE >>

"Along with the amended complaint, the DOL filed an unopposed motion to approve a consent order and judgment ... [under which] FFG will pay $134,222.70 to participants directly for the amounts applied to their deductibles or charged to them as tobacco surcharges. For missing or lost participants, FFG agreed to adopt a missing participant search policy ... This lawsuit signals that DOL remains concerned with locating missing participants and examining wellness program violations, despite its heavy enforcement focus on mental health parity and No Surprises Act (NSA) compliance. " [Su v. Flying Food Group, LLC, No. 23-6583 (N.D. Ill. proposed consent order filed Aug. 30, 2023)]  MORE >>

"The Court ... determined that the claims administrator's denial letter failed to convey to the claimant '[t]he specific reason or reasons for the adverse determination' and 'the specific plan provisions on which the determination is based.'... The Court ... [noted] that ERISA requires 'dialogue' between the plan administrator and a claimant. The Court added that a court reviewing an administrator's benefits decisions cannot consider reasons the administrator included in its internal notes when the administrator never conveyed those same reasons to the claimant." [P. v. United Healthcare Ins. Co., No. 21-4129 (10th Cir. Aug. 15, 2023)]  MORE >>

"As outlined in the proposed legislation, the measure would: [1] Cover companies with 50 or more employees. [2] Permit all qualified workers to take up to 15 weeks of paid intermittent from work to care for themselves or their families. [3] Provide up to 65 percent of a worker's pay. [4] Be funded by a payroll tax on employers."  MORE >>

"If enacted, the regulations would ... regulate contracting with network pharmacies; prohibit preferential treatment of pharmacies owned or affiliated with PBMs; require prior approval for acquisitions of PBMs; and impose consumer protection requirements such as prohibiting market conduct practices deemed unfair, deceptive or abusive, and requiring network adequacy standards."  MORE >>

"Cost sharing shifted from deductibles to copayments and coinsurance among enrollees in HSA-eligible health plans for a number of services impacted by IRS Notice 2019-45. The same shift was not observed for enrollees in other types of health plans. IRS Notice 2019-45 appears to have had a negligible impact on overall cost sharing as a percentage of total spending on a number of services impacted by the notice. This may be due to the fact that employers were more likely to change their cost sharing approach instead of eliminating it."  MORE >>

"[E]mployers realize that ... the fragmented ecosystem has significantly increased the complexity of managing healthcare for employees and has created a highly disconnected employee experience.... The survey found that employers' concerns and needs for new, innovative solutions revolve around four major dimensions: digital ecosystem, clinical value, health benefits to support diversity and inclusion, and the workforce of the future."  MORE >>