Open Enrollment Decisions: Check-off Your Tasks

Open enrollment is a time each year—typically in the fall—when individuals can enroll in or make changes to their employer-based health, welfare, and fringe benefit options. Life insurance is a typical employee benefit that an employee may select in an employer-offered menu of benefits at open enrollment, selecting or changing options that were made at initial employment, at a prior open enrollment, or after a change of status event.

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Related Content   

• Open Enrollment Notices Checklist (Health and Welfare Plans)
  Reference this checklist to review what participant communications are important for open enrollment.

Legal Developments

• Post-Dobbs, May Abortions Be Reimbursed on a Tax-Free Basis from a Health FSA, an HRA, or an HSA?
  Read this guidance on the use of health savings plan funds for abortion care.

• Action Items Plan Sponsors Should Consider in the Wake of the U.S. Supreme Court Dobbs Decision on Abortion
  Get insights on the next steps employers sponsoring group health plans should consider following the Dobbs decision.

• HHS Issues Guidance on HIPAA Protections
  Review the latest HIPAA guidance from the Department of Health and Human Services following the Dobbs decision, designed to help protect patients and their providers with respect to reproductive health care.

Practical Guidance Updates
Featuring the latest updates from your Practical Guidance account.

• Employee Benefits & Executive Compensation Key Legal Developments Tracker
  Stay informed on new developments.
  • Retirement Plans. IRS extends deadlines for amending a retirement plan or individual retirement arrangement (IRA) to reflect certain provisions of the SECURE Act, the Bipartisan American Miners Act of 2019, and the CARES Act. Notice 2022-33.
  • Health and Welfare Plans. HHS, DOL, and IRS issue FAQs regarding birth control coverage consistent with Executive Order 14076 issued on July 13, 2022, to clarify protections for birth control coverage under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), requiring that most private health plans are required to provide birth control and family planning counseling at no additional cost. 87 Fed. Reg. 42,053 (July 13, 2022); HHS Press Office; Agency FAQs.
  • Health and Welfare Plans. HHS, through its Office for Civil Rights, proposes rules that revise the Section 1557 nondiscrimination regulations under the ACA, affirming and expanding protections against discrimination on the basis of sex, including sexual orientation and gender identity, and those seeking reproductive healthcare services. Under these rules, a covered entity must not, in providing or administering health insurance coverage or other health-related coverage, discriminate against any protected class. 87 Fed. Reg. ___ (prepublication draft).
• Listen up! Practical Guidance Podcast: NFTs: Copyright Infringement, Regulation, and Regulation Podcast. Hear from Holland & Knight’s Daniel Barsky as he discusses NFTs (non-fungible tokens) which have become all the rage. From a recent copyright lawsuit over Quentin Tarantino's NFT of unreleased Pulp Fiction materials, to the micro-investment possibilities in Banksy’s artwork, NFTs are in the news and do not appear to be going away. 
• Document alerts allow you to stay current on legal developments that affect your practice. Find out how to set up your document alerts.
• Check out the new Practical Guidance Author Center! Learn about the 1500+ leading attorney authors contributing to our 21 practice areas, and find out how you can Become a Practical Guidance Author.
• Share the Summer Associate Resource Kit: Employee Benefits & Executive Compensation with your firm’s summer associates to help them sharpen their research and writing skills, get the inside scoop on summer associate survival, and hit the ground running.
• The Practical Guidance Journal Summer 2022 Edition features wage and hour issues related to remote and hybrid work.

• New Practical Guidance Content
  • Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization Resource Kit
  • Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization Client Alert Digest
  • SCOTUS Overturns Roe: Understanding the Impact on Your Benefit Plans
  • ERISA Excessive Fees Class Action Video
  • Medicare Secondary Payer Rules
  • Amendment and Limited Waiver for Executive Employment Agreement
  • Anti-assignment of Health Plan Benefits Clause (Summary Plan Description)
  • General Release Extension Addendum to Separation Agreement

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