Employers sponsoring group health plan coverage now or in 2014, check the adequacy of your insurer or third party administrator’s claims and appeals processes and notices. [read post]

Ranching businesses that employ foreign workers with H-2A VISAs to herd sheep, goats, cattle or other range livestock (“Herders”) should begin preparing to comply with significant changes in the Labor Department regulations governing the recruitment and employment of Herders made in the new Labor Department Final Regulation on Temporary Agricultural Employment of H-2A Foreign Workers in the Herding or Production of Livestock on the Range (Final Rule). [read post]

The Resolution Agreement also illustrates how efforts to manage HIPAA compliance risks are complicated when before a health plan or other Covered Entity identifies or addresses a breach, an employee or other insider of the Covered Entity reports the suspected breech while board reporting and other corrective actions including in the “robust corrective action plan” imposed under the Resolution Agreement remind boards and other leaders of these organizations of the need… [read post]