Benefits Magazine

• More Than Meets the Eye: Considerations for Offering Family Planning Benefits
  by Erin E. Shick
  When creating and operating family planning benefits— such as adoption assistance and coverage of fertility services and surrogacy expenses— employers and plan sponsors need to consider several tax and compliance issues.
• How to Be Fully Transparent—Can Funds Overshare in Participant Communications?
  by Jennifer S. Abrams and Joanna M. Pineda
  Creating effective employee benefits communications is often a tough task. The authors share strategies for communicating to be understood while avoiding oversharing.
• An Employer’s Guide to Navigating State Retirement Mandates
  by Samuel A. Henson, CEBS
  State-sponsored automatic individual retirement accounts (auto-IRAs) are an emerging and challenging area of compliance for employers, requiring them to navigate a disjointed patchwork of rules. Employers within the affected states should be aware of the mandates and the implications going forward.
• The Ins and Outs of Nondiscrimination Testing for Health Plans
  by Hannah Chernov and Jessica Waltman
  Conducting formal testing is the only way a health and welfare plan can know whether it is compliant with federal nondiscrimination requirements and protect the tax status of workers participating in the benefit plan.
• Collecting Welfare Plan Overpayments— Continuing Challenges
  by Sharon M. Goodman and Zachary Gaines
  Recovering an employee benefit plan overpayment from a participant may not be as simple as asking for the money back. In the second article of two parts, the authors review the challenges in recouping health and welfare plan overpayments. The first article discussed collecting retirement plan overpayments.
• Legal & Legislative Reporter (September)
• Legal & Legislative Reporter (October)

Printable Issue [PDF]

• How to Leverage Your EAP for a Mentally Healthy Workplace: What Leaders Need to Know and Do
  by Joel B. Bennett, Ph.D., Aldrich Chan and Mark Attridge, Ph.D.
  Many leaders take time away from business matters to deal with problems related to worker stress and mental health, yet the employee assistance programs (EAPs) that address these issues often are underappreciated by employers. What can leaders do to engage EAPs and promote mental health as well as substance use prevention?
• KYP (Know Your Participant): Multiemployer Retirement Plan Death Audits and Other Processes
  by Lisa L. Kaiser, CEBS, and Carey R. Wooton, CEBS
  Do you know your retirement plan participants? Multiemployer plans have a fiduciary duty to ensure that benefits are paid to the correct recipient every month. Having policies on death audits and data collection are among best practices to assist in this effort.
• Collecting Retirement Plan Overpayments: New Challenges
  by Sharon M. Goodman and Zachary Gaines
  Recovering an employee benefit plan overpayment from a participant may not be as simple as asking for the money back. In the first article of two parts, the authors discuss options for recouping retirement plan overpayments and how the rules have been changed by the SECURE 2.0 Act of 2022. A second article will discuss the rules and options for health and welfare plans.
• On Target: Best Practices for Offering Pharmacogenomic Testing Benefits
  by Jeffrey A. Shaman, Ph.D.
  Pharmacogenomic (PGx) testing has emerged as a strategy to help plan participants avoid adverse reactions to prescription drugs as well as the sometimes costly and lengthy trial-and-error process of finding the right medication. What should plan sponsors look for in a PGx program?
• Legal & Legislative Reporter (July)
• Legal & Legislative Reporter (August)

Printable Issue [PDF]

• DC Plans and SECURE 2.0: What’s Now, and What’s Next?
  by Steven E. Grieb, CEBS
  The SECURE 2.0 Act contains a dizzying number of mandatory and optional changes for defined contribution retirement plans. This article highlights some of the areas plan sponsors should focus on in taking a holistic approach to reconsidering plan design given the new SECURE 2.0 rules.
• Four Key Action Steps to Prepare for Open Enrollment
  by Kim A. Buckey
  By starting now to prepare for 2023 open enrollment, employers can address benefits knowledge gaps and ensure that they offer the right resources for a smooth enrollment process.
• ESG in Retirement Plans: Investment, Risk Management and Regulatory Considerations
  by Maureen O’Brien and Julian Regan
  Both defined benefit and defined contribution retirement plans are increasingly integrating environmental, social and governance (ESG) considerations into their investment approaches. This article reviews ESG trends and describes the challenges, policy debates and regulatory changes.
• The Who, When and Why of Independent Fiduciaries
  by Stephen Wilkes and John Sohn
  Employee benefit plan sponsors may need to hire an independent fiduciary in certain situations in order to avoid conflicts of interest and prohibited transactions under ERISA. What is an independent fiduciary, and when might a plan need one?
• Legal & Legislative Reporter (May)
• Legal & Legislative Reporter (June)

Printable Issue [PDF]

• Investing Special Financial Assistance Program Assets
  by Brian Bruzda
  The Special Financial Assistance (SFA) program affords troubled multiemployer pension plans an opportunity to significantly improve their health. This article reviews the rules on permitted investments, examines various portfolio allocation policy alternatives and offers considerations for trustees.
• Mental Health Parity Compliance: Hidden Hurdles
  by Stephanie Patrick
  The road to compliance with mental health parity rules is filled with hidden hurdles. Being aware of these obstacles may help employers and health plan sponsors avoid violations.
• Addressing Financial Fragility in the Workplace
  by Meghan Cowfer, Ruth Hunt, Tom Kelly and Alan Vorchheimer, CEBS
  Factors including inflation and the COVID-19 pandemic have taken a toll on workers’ financial well-being. How can employers help?
• Helping Employees Access Pay Resources During Unpaid Parental Leave
  by Stephanie J. Lowe
  Many U.S. workers do not have a guaranteed source of pay to cover leave for the birth of a child or to bond with a new addition to the family. Employers that don’t offer a paid parental leave program may want to consider helping employees navigate other paid leave options.
• Legal & Legislative Reporter (March)
• Legal & Legislative Reporter (April)

Printable Issue [PDF]

• The Evolving Biosimilar Landscape
  by Katie Holcomb
  Biosimilar drugs may represent an opportunity for health plan sponsors to reduce health plan and prescription drug costs. The relatively low number of biosimilars on the market and lack of prescriber acceptance are among the factors impeding widespread uptake of these drugs.
• Assessing Public Pension Plan Objectives
  by Elizabeth Wiley
  Taking a step back to assess a public pension plan’s effectiveness in meeting its goals is a vital part of any effort to make plan design changes. These objectives commonly include workforce management and providing retirement security for participants while also operating within budgetary constraints.
• Cancer Care: Maximizing Patient Outcomes While Reducing Health Plan Costs
  by Jennifer M. Smith-Hulbert
  Containing the costs of cancer requires health plans to adopt a specialized approach. Offering programs such as care navigation and expert medical opinion services can help improve outcomes for plan participants who have cancer while also reducing costs.
• A Case of Continuous Improvement in IBEW Apprenticeship Training: Bridging the Skills Gap
  by R. Lance Hogan, Ph.D., and Luke J. Steinke, Ph.D.
  The electrical training Alliance (etA) conducted a comparative study of its inside wireman apprenticeship curriculum to ensure that its programs are keeping pace with industry demands and better meeting the skill needs of the current workforce. Following the process used by etA may help apprenticeship program leaders strive for continuous improvement of an existing program.
• Legal & Legislative Reporter (January)
• Legal & Legislative Reporter (February)
• Magazine Extra: Benefits Touch Points-- Communicating When it Matters
• Magazine Extra: Benefits Considerations for Unretirees
• Magazine Extra: Adapting Benefits to Today’s Multigenerational, Postpandemic Workforce

Printable Issue [PDF]