"The IRS has issued a new fact sheet that offers expanded guidance on employer-sponsored educational assistance programs, which can be a powerful recruiting and retention tool for business leaders."  MORE >>

"Currently, eligible employees in Rhode Island can take six weeks of leave ... to care for a newborn, or newly adopted child, or to care for a family member with a serious health condition. As of Jan. 1, 2025, employees will be entitled to seven weeks of leave, which will increase to eight weeks as of Jan. 1, 2026."  MORE >>

"Commercial health care spending is estimated to grow to its highest level in 13 years ... PwC’s Health Research Institute (HRI) is projecting an 8% year-on-year medical cost trend in 2025 for the Group market and 7.5% for the Individual market. This near-record trend is driven by inflationary pressure, prescription drug spending and behavioral health utilization."  MORE >>

"In two recent [HHS] Office for Civil Rights (OCR) enforcement actions, one against a major US health insurer and the other against the nation's largest publicly operated health plan, OCR examined how health plans are, or aren't, protecting, disclosing, and honoring individual rights related to health plan protected health information (PHI) in accordance with HIPAA's mandates."  MORE >>

"Section 408(b)(2) of [ERISA] requires certain disclosures regarding employee benefit plan fees.... The disclosure rule was expanded by the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021 to apply to welfare plans, and several notable cases have already been filed against welfare benefit plan sponsors.... Now is the time for plan fiduciaries to protect themselves from potential claims by revisiting their fiduciary practices as they apply to health and welfare plan administration."  MORE >>

"Tax-exempt employers that sponsor Code Section 457(f) plans ... may have to make changes to such plans.... If the FTC ban takes effect and causes loss of a substantial risk of forfeiture based on a noncompete, it could affect income recognition timing in the absence of an 83(b) election ... Severance plans, including those set forth in executive severance/employment agreements and those structured as ERISA plans, may have included noncompetes as a condition to receive benefits.... Employers that do not carefully monitor when a separation from service occurs may risk inadvertent violations of Code Section 409A."  MORE >>