On September 17, 2026, the Second Circuit handed down a significant decision for self-insured group health plans, holding that the No Surprises Act (“NSA”) does not create a private right of action for out-of-network providers to enforce payment awards obtained through the independent dispute resolution (“IDR”) process. The ruling in East Coast Advanced Plastic Surgery
On September 8, 2026, the Department of Labor’s Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA) issued Field Assistance Bulletin No. 2026-03 (FAB 2026-03 or the Bulletin), announcing a focused enforcement policy for the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act (MHPAEA). At the same time, EBSA also released a corresponding compliance tool intended to provide additional guidance
Every few years, promoters resurface with new “double dip” health plan products promising employees more take‑home pay and employers big employment‑tax savings. The pitch is familiar: employees pay large pre‑tax “premiums” through a cafeteria plan, then receive substantial, “tax‑free” payments back through payroll that are just shy of the pre‑tax contributions. Because the contribution was
As described in earlier Thompson Hine blog posts (here, here, here, and here), Trump accounts continue to take shape as a new employer-sponsored benefit. On August 11, 2026, the Treasury Department and IRS published proposed regulations (REG-101355-26) that answer many of the open questions we flagged previously, most significantly, how
On August 11, 2026, the Treasury Department and Internal Revenue Service published proposed regulations that, for the first time, provide comprehensive regulatory guidance on how to perform nondiscrimination testing for dependent care assistance programs (DCAPs) under Section 129 of the Internal Revenue Code. While the proposed regulations were prompted by the need to implement the
Employer-sponsored group health plans are facing a growing wave of ERISA class action lawsuits, and the claims are getting bolder, including claims of “financial dominance”. In our previous post on this topic, we analyzed Barbich et al. v. Northwestern University et al., No. 1:25-cv-06849 (N.D. Ill.), which introduced a novel “financial dominance” theory
On April 23, 2026, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”) Office for Civil Rights (“OCR”) announced settlements with four health entities following investigations into ransomware breaches that exposed unsecured electronic protected health information (“ePHI”). While ransomware enforcement actions are not new, one of the four settlements stands out as a landmark: for
Artificial intelligence (“AI”) tools are increasingly being deployed across the employee benefits landscape: from claims administration and customer service to investment analysis and participant engagement. While these technologies promise efficiency and cost savings, recent litigation and regulatory activity underscore that the use of AI in benefits administration carries meaningful legal and fiduciary risk. Below we
The Departments of Health and Human Services, Labor, and the Treasury (Departments) recently released the Federal Independent Dispute Resolution (IDR) public use files (PUF) and supplemental tables for the third and fourth quarters of 2025, and the numbers should get the attention of every plan sponsor and fiduciary overseeing a self-insured group health plan. The
In less than three months, two federal courts of appeals have held that ERISA’s actuarial-equivalence requirement mandates reasonable actuarial assumptions, rather than assumptions that simply produce mathematically equivalent optional forms of benefits to the default form of payment. In Reichert v. Kellogg Co., decided March 16, 2026, the Sixth Circuit reversed dismissals of actions