Co-authored by: Hays Health Strategies Consultants Amy Vitale & Cecelia Weir Although society has made significant strides in recent years to remove the negative association surrounding mental health, research shows many employees will not seek mental health visits due to the stigma and confusion around what mental health entails. In some cases, employees will delay […]
With travel restriction, business closings, and interrupted production, the 2019 Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) breakout already has reaching effects. As of February 2020, there are confirmed cases in many international locations, including the United States. The overall financial losses and costs will continue to evolve as businesses are interrupted by supply chain lapses, stock shortages and lost sales.
2019 Forms and Instructions for Forms 1094-C and 1095-C have been released by the IRS, and we anticipate seeing final forms shortly. Although 2019 marked the end of the individual health coverage mandate penalties, very few changes have been proposed to the employer ACA reporting requirements.
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) is a federal law designed to improve the health care delivery system. Because a Health FSA (HFSA) is technically a health plan, HIPAA’s requirements related to privacy and security (which are referred to as HIPAA’s Administrative Simplification provisions) apply to most HFSA’s.
State workers’ compensation regulations are becoming more complex due to the legalization of recreational marijuana in 10 states and medical marijuana being prescribed more often for pain management.
In response to an Executive Order on Improving Price and Quality Transparency in American Healthcare to Put Patients First issued June 24, 2019, proposed regulations were released by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA) on November 12, 2019.
Here at Hays Companies Research and Compliance, we have noticed an increased number of questions about the look back measurement method for non-full-time employees. This likely has to do with the fact that the ACA’s Employer Mandate has been the law of the land for about five years now, most employers have tracking systems embedded within their payroll and HRIS systems that automatically calculate who has qualified for coverage, and as a result, the hard won knowledge of the Employer Mandate’s commencement has gone a little rusty (for some).
HSAs (Health Savings Accounts) and FSAs (Flexible Spending Accounts): Are both accounts designed to help employees put aside money to pay for extra medical expenses on a pre-tax basis, both have rules around maximum contributions and permissible distributions, and both have remarkably similar sounding acronyms. However, the similarities for the most part, stop here.