Our Website Uses Cookies
We and the third parties that provide content, functionality, or business services on our website may use cookies to collect information about your browsing activities in order to provide you with more relevant content and promotional materials, on and off the website, and help us understand your interests and improve the website.
For more information, please contact us or consult our Privacy Notice.
Your binder contains too many pages, the maximum is 40.
We are unable to add this page to your binder, please try again later.
This page has been added to your binder.
COVID-19: Your Health Plans and Your Business Response
March 6, 2020, Covington Alert
Businesses are rapidly developing strategies to continue functioning and protect their workforces in the face of the growing Coronavirus COVID-19 outbreak. For obvious reasons, businesses may want to deploy health screening, testing, and professional medical advice services—including telemedicine—to their employees and dependents. It is critical that employers' health plans support these efforts and not get in the way of them. For example, businesses may not want coverage, co-pay, and deductible issues to discourage employees from taking advantage of the services businesses are deploying. Making sure this is the case raises a number of technical issues, some of which we have listed below and would be happy to assist you in resolving.
- Can health plan deductibles and employee co-insurance obligations be waived for screenings and treatment of the coronavirus, including, among others, in a high deductible health plan with a health savings account?
- Are health plans required to cover screenings and treatment of the coronavirus?
- How much of the costs for screening and treating the coronavirus are health plans required to pay?
- If a location needs to close or temporarily lay off employees:
- Must the employer continue to offer health coverage to affected employees?
- How do affected employees pay health insurance premiums while on unpaid leave?
- What assistance can employers offer to affected employees?
- What information do privacy laws permit employers and health plans to share about an employee’s coronavirus diagnosis?
February 14, 2018, Covington Alert
The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (the “Act”) became Pub. Law 115-97 on December 22, 2017. Many of its more startling provisions have become well known since then. Of less dramatic impact are several provisions affecting qualified employer plans, fringe benefits, and certain kinds of compensation. These provisions are described in this client alert. This client ...
October 22, 2012
WASHINGTON, DC, October 22, 2012 — Covington & Burling served as ERISA counsel to Verizon Communications Inc. on its transfer of $7.5 billion in pension liabilities to The Prudential Insurance Company of America. Many sponsors of defined benefit plans, especially frozen plans, are considering ways to “de-risk” by reducing or eliminating the volatility ...
Re-Imagining the Pension Plan: Sharing Risk to Achieve Efficient, Sustainable Retirement Security
2012, N.Y.U. Review of Employee Benefits and Executive Compensation