EEOC Ordered to Reconsider What “Voluntary” Means for its Wellness Program Guidance

The long-running efforts of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to provide guidance on what constitutes a “voluntary” wellness program were called into question by the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, in the case A.A.R.P. vs. U.S. E.E.O.C. More ›

EEOC Issues Sample Notice for Employers Offering Wellness Programs

Last month, we alerted you to some new guidance from the EEOC on wellness programs. One of the key requirements of this new guidance is that employers must give notice to participants about the information being collected through the wellness program and how that information is to be used. Yesterday, the EEOC issued additional guidance on this notice requirement, including a sample notice and a list of items employers should consider when dealing with the notice requirement.  More ›

EEOC Issues Final Regulations on Wellness Programs

Employers who provide employees with incentives to encourage healthy behavior must contend with an alphabet soup of federal law — ERISA, GINA, HIPAA, the ACA, the ADA, just to name a few. Earlier this week, the EEOC weighed in and finalized its latest guidance on how employer wellness programs should be structured. These final regulations largely adopt the proposed regulations that were issued in 2015. More ›

EEOC Clarifies when Employers may Offer Incentives to Employee's Spouses to Provide Genetic Information

Earlier this year, this blog brought you a look at proposed rules by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) that provided some guidance on how to administer a voluntary employee wellness program without running afoul of the Americans with Disabilities Act. 

Yet, one question remained open for years and was not clarified by those proposed rules — how the EEOC would handle employers offering incentives allowing them to collect certain genetic information of employees' spouses in connection with employer wellness programs. Recently proposed rules seek to clarify that issue. More ›

Are Employee Wellness Programs OK Under the ADA? EEOC Says Yes, But...

Until recently, businesses looking to make sure that their employee wellness programs comply with the ADA were without much help from the EEOC — besides a series of surprisingly unhelpful opinion letters and a one-sentence answer in an online Q&A stating that voluntary wellness programs must not “require participation, nor penalize employees who do not participate,” the EEOC has not made entirely clear how the ADA does or does not restrict such programs. On April 20, however, the EEOC took an initial step towards clarity when it issued proposed ADA rules regarding these cost-saving measures — weight loss programs, smoking cessation efforts, health risk assessments, and so on. More ›

Recently Issued Final Regulations Provide Clarification on Employee Wellness Programs

On May 29, 2013, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), U.S. Department of the Treasury (Treasury), and U.S. Department of Labor issued the final rule governing employee wellness programs under the Affordable Care Act (ACA). This rule is intended to provide comprehensive guidance as to the general requirements for wellness programs by restructuring the regulations proposed by the departments in November 2012. These regulations replace the wellness program provisions of paragraph (f) of the 2006 Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) nondiscrimination and wellness provisions jointly published by HHS and the Treasury and implement Section 2705 of the Public Health Service Act (PHS). As amended by the ACA, the PHS’ nondiscrimination and wellness provisions largely reflect the 2006 regulations and extend the HIPAA nondiscrimination protections to the individual market. The rule applies to group health insurance coverage for plan years starting on or after January 1, 2014. More ›