In a prior post, we covered President Trump’s order directing the Department of Labor to review the new regulation and, as it deems appropriate, to take steps to revise or rescind it.  The Employee Benefits Security Administration (“EBSA”) has taken the first step in response to that order by proposing a 60 day delay in the applicability date. The final rule had an applicability date of April 10, 2017.  Likewise, the prohibited transaction exemptions (“PTEs”) included in the final rule, such as the Best Interest Contract Exemption, had an applicability date of April 10, 2017.

In light of the President’s prior order, EBSA has released the text of a proposed rule, to be published on March 2, 2017, delaying the applicability date of the final rule and the PTEs by 60 days.  EBSA noted that there were only 45 days until the rule and the PTEs became effective

While on this day, most people focus on the heart, we’re going to spend a little time focusing on the head.  Under the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act (MHPAEA), health plans generally cannot impose more stringent “non-quantitative” treatment limitations on mental health and substance abuse benefits (we will use “mental health” for short) than they impose on medical/surgical benefits.  The point of the rule is to prevent plans from imposing standards (pre-approval/precertification or medical necessity, as two examples) that make it harder for participants to get coverage for mental health benefits than medical/surgical benefits. “Non-quantitative” has been synonymous with “undeterminable” and “unmeasurable”,  so to say that this is a “fuzzy” standard is an understatement.

However, we are not without some hints as to the Labor Department’s views on how

Only hours into the new administration, steps were taken to eliminate, or at the very least minimize the impact of, the Patient Protections and Affordable Care Act (“ACA”).  In his first Executive Order, President Trump affirmed his intent to repeal the ACA and further sought to minimize the economic burden of the ACA.  The order instructs the Secretary of Health and Human Services and the heads of all other executive departments and agencies to,  “take all actions consistent with the law to minimize the unwarranted economic and regulatory burden of the act, and prepare to afford the states more flexibility and control to create a more free and open healthcare market.”

This is not a repeal of the ACA (the President cannot unilaterally do that).  However, what

On January 18, 2017, the IRS issued proposed regulations allowing amounts held as forfeitures in a 401(k) plan to be used to fund qualified nonelective contributions (QNECs) and qualified matching contributions (QMACs). This sounds really technical (and it is), but it’s also really helpful.  Some plan sponsors of 401(k) plans use additional contributions QNECs and/or QMACs to satisfy nondiscrimination testing.  Before these proposed rules, they could not use forfeitures to fund these contributions because the rules required that QNECs and QMACs be nonforfeitable when made (and also subject to the same distribution restrictions as 401(k) contributions).  If you have money sitting in a forfeiture account, then by definition it was forfeitable when made, so that money couldn’t possibly have been used to fund a

If statistics are any guide, by now a significant number of you have already broken your New Year’s resolutions.  However, there’s still plenty of time to make new ones that you can break, er, keep.  If you sponsor or work with an employee benefit plan (and odds are, if you’re reading this, that you do), then here are some ideas to keep in mind in the upcoming year:

In the latest round of FAQs on ACA implementation (now up to 35 if you’re keeping track), the DOL, HHS and Treasury Department addressed questions regarding HIPAA special enrollment rights, ACA coverage for preventive services, and HRA-like arrangements under the 21st Century Cures Act.

Special Enrollment for Group Health Plans. Under HIPAA, group health plans generally must allow current employees and dependents to enroll in the group health plan if the employee or dependents lose eligibility for coverage in which they were previously enrolled.  This FAQ clarifies that an individual is entitled to a special enrollment period if they lose individual market coverage.  This could happen, for example, if an insurer covering the employee or dependent stops offering that individual market coverage.  However, a loss of coverage due to a failure to timely pay premiums or for cause will not give the employee

It might be tempting to conclude that the recent Department of Labor regulations on disability claims procedures is limited to disability plans.  However, as those familiar with the claims procedures know, it applies to all plans that provide benefits based on a disability determination, which can include vesting or payment under pension, 401(k), and other retirement plans as well. Beyond that, however, the DOL also went a little beyond a discussion of just disability-related claims.

The New Rules

The new rules are effective for claims submitted on or after January 1, 2018. Under the new rules, the disability claims process will look a lot like the group health plan claims process.  In short:

• Disability claims procedures must be designed