Health Law Advisor

By Greta Ravitsky

I wrote the January 2013 edition of Take 5: Views You Can Use, a newsletter published by the Labor and Employment practice of Epstein Becker Green.

In it, I summarize  five actions that employers should consider taking in 2013 as the DOL steps up its audit efforts under the leadership of the reenergized Obama administration,

1. Assess the Workforce
2. Choose Whether to “Pay” or to “Play”
3. Evaluate Existing Wellness Programs and/or Implement New Wellness Programs to Enhance Employees’ Health Profiles and to Avoid  or Minimize the “Cadillac ...

It is no secret that the National Labor Relations Board (the “Board”) is engaged in a purposeful and partisan attempt to issue rules and decisions that benefit unions, often to the detriment of employers, including attempts by the Board to assert itself into non-union workplaces.    The decisions that the Board has issued over the past few weeks illustrate that this trend is likely to continue during President Obama’s second term.  Indeed, the holiday season has provided unions with additional reason to celebrate as, among other things, the Board has overturned decades of ...

Epstein Becker Green is pleased to announce a webinar series for health care employers focusing on new and more aggressive tactics and strategies being employed by health care industry unions.

This three-part webinar series will provide an in-depth analysis and offer tools to assist employers who currently have union represented workforces as well as those who are or may be facing organizing efforts.

Part I - January 29, 2013
Aggressive Union Organizing Strategies:  When Organizing Trumps Patient Care

Part II - February 28, 2013
Aggressive Union Negotiating Tactics

Part III - March ...

by: Maxine H. Neuhauser and Amy E. Hatcher

On January 7, 2013, the New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development (the “Department”) published in the New Jersey Register proposed new rules and notification language to implement a recently enacted law intended to fight gender inequity and bias in the workplace.  The notice of proposal is available for downloading here.

The law, which became effective on November 19, 2012, requires every employer in New Jersey with 50 or more employees to post a notice advising employees of their right to be free from gender inequity or bias ...

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) Privacy Rule provides standards for the use and disclosure of "individually identifiable health information," dubbed protected health information, or PHI.  PHI is information, including demographic information, that relates to an individual's physical or mental health, the provision of health care to the individual, or payment for the provision of health care to the individual.  Such information constitutes PHI if it identifies the individual or if there is a reasonable basis to believe it can be ...

The rapid development and utilization of remote patient monitoring tools in health care exposes the limitations of state licensure laws that generally require physicians to be licensed in states where their patients are located.  These laws are predicated on the physician and patient being in the same jurisdiction.  However, when using mobile-devices to actively monitor patients (such as a device sensor with 4G chipset that can directly connect to cellular networks), there is no single geographic anchor or fixed moment in time from which to define the encounter, episode or point of ...

Please join Epstein Becker Green’s Health Care & Life Sciences and Labor & Employment practitioners as we continue to review the Affordable Care Act and its ongoing impact on employers and their group health plans.

In less than a year, employers employing at least 50 full-time employees will be subject to the Employer Shared Responsibility provisions. Under these provisions, if employers do not offer health coverage or do not offer affordable health coverage that provides a minimum level of value to their full-time employees, they may be subject to a tax penalty under the proposed ...

Please join Epstein Becker Green’s Health Care & Life Sciences and Labor & Employment practitioners as we continue to review the Affordable Care Act and its ongoing impact on employers and their group health plans.

In less than a year, employers employing at least 50 full-time employees will be subject to the Employer Shared Responsibility provisions. Under these provisions, if employers do not offer health coverage or do not offer affordable health coverage that provides a minimum level of value to their full-time employees, they may be subject to a tax penalty under the proposed ...

On Tuesday, December 18, Epstein Becker Green attorneys Gretchen Harders, Frank C. Morris, Jr., and Adam C. Solander offered a one-hour webinar titled “What Employers Need to Know Now!” as the second webinar in a series on the New ACA Implementation Regulations: Employer Impact.

The webinar included:

• ACA implementation timeline
• Structure of the law and basic concepts affecting employers
• Critical employer decision making and planning for 2014
• Alternative plan design options available to employers

The webinar recording and presentation slides for “What Employers Need to ...

While tech companies looking to provide health solutions must figure out early on whether they are HIPAA-regulated, HIPAA is not the be-all and end-all of privacy law. Even entities not regulated under HIPAA must abide by other privacy rules, including a wide array of state privacy laws. On December 6, 2012, in the state’s first legal action under its online privacy law, California Attorney General Kamala Harris filed a lawsuit against a major airline for not including a privacy policy in its smartphone app. The complaint alleges violation of California’s Online Privacy ...