Your health and welfare plans are important to your employees – and your employees are important to you. Let us help you make the most of the benefits your company provides.
UB Greensfelder’s employee benefits team advises clients on:
- Plan design
- Plan drafting
- Plan operation
- Domestic partner issues
- Drafting enforceable subrogation provisions
- Compliance with various applicable laws (e.g., ERISA, HIPAA, COBRA, ACA, tax code)
How We Help
We have significant experience representing clients in the following health and welfare plan matters:
- Medical Plans. In an era of escalating medical costs, employers need to understand how best to structure their medical plans. Employers also must ensure benefits are clearly and accurately written into the plan and summary plan description. We can help clients meet these obligations by advising on plan structure and design, preparing medical plan documents, advising on cost-saving measures, and handling claims associated with experimental and other high-cost treatments.
- Cafeteria Plans. By providing a significant tax benefit, cafeteria plans have become essential components of benefit programs. We design, draft, and implement cafeteria plans and closely monitor proposed regulations affecting these plans. Our goal is to provide clients with a compliant plan that is appealing to their employees and easy to administer.
- Dependent Care Assistance. Organizations that have employees with young children can benefit from a dependent care assistance plan. We help employers put a plan in place – designing a program for the organization and helping it introduce the plan to its staff. We also monitor these plans and alert clients to possible compliance issues on the horizon.
- Life Insurance. Not a simple benefit anymore, life insurance comes in a wide array of packages – group term, split dollar, universal, self-funded death benefit programs, and so on. We guide clients through the rules governing these programs, provide sound legal and practical advice, and ultimately find a life insurance plan (or plans) that fit each organization’s unique needs.
- Disability Plans. Disability plans – short-term and long-term – provide employees valuable benefits, yet these benefits are often the subject of dispute and litigation. Our experience with disability claims, often centered on the definition of "disability," enables us to be proactive today, helping clients institute more solid and secure plans from the start.
- ACA. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (commonly called ACA) radically changed the legal requirements and regulatory environment impacting health plans. It is critical for employers to understand their obligations under ACA and ensure that they are in compliance. Our employee benefits attorneys are well-versed in the ACA requirements and provide advice with regard to virtually every type of issue that can arise as a result of this important legislation.
- HIPAA. HIPAA’s far-reaching implications affect how companies and health plans must handle and safeguard participants’ protected health information (PHI). Achieving and maintaining compliance is critical. We help clients evaluate their operations, determine their current level of compliance, develop appropriate HIPAA policies and procedures, and suggest improvements to maintain HIPAA compliance going forward.
- Health Care Reimbursement. A health care reimbursement program is a tax-effective mechanism for providing medical benefits to employees. However, these arrangements are subject to numerous legal requirements—some of which changed significantly following the enactment of ACA. We help clients design and implement a medical reimbursement or health care reimbursement program that’s just right for the workforce and complies with applicable legal requirements.
- COBRA Compliance. COBRA provides exiting employees with critical transitional benefits, yet employers must manage the complex program, which is fraught with the potential for severe penalties for noncompliance. Our assistance with COBRA programs provides clients with peace of mind and keeps their plans compliant. In addition to regularly providing proactive guidance regarding COBRA to our clients, we represented the defendants in one of the most celebrated COBRA compliance court cases, Geissal v. Moore Medical Corp.
