Date: Thursday, September 7, 2017
Time: 1:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m.
Cost: $199.99 for live webinar and the recorded
podcast for future listening
TPAs and stop-loss carriers, plan sponsors
fiduciaries and brokers and consultants are invited learn critical information
about their expanding risks and responsibilities arising from existing and
proposed changes to rules and enforcement of federal group health plan mental
health and substance abuse (MH/SUB) coverage and privacy rules under the Mental
Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008 (MHPAEA), as supplemented by the
Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) and the 21st Century Cures Act
(Cures Act) and the Privacy Rules of the Health Insurance Portability &
Accountability Act (HIPAA) conducted by attorney Cynthia Marcotte Stamer, a
Fellow in the American College of Employee Benefits recognized as among the
“Best Lawyers” in employee benefits for her health and other benefit knowledge, experience, policy advocacy
and thought leadership.
This
Webinar will examine the regulatory and enforcement activity relating to the
Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act and 21st Century Cures
Act. It will include a discussion of issues relating to DOL FAQs and HHS guidance,
development in the area of expansion disclosure requirements for health plan
compliance with the protections of the MHAEA. Cynthi Marcotte Stamer will
discuss joint guidance
published June 16, 2017 by Departments of Labor (DOL), Health & Human
Services (HHS) and Treasury (collectively, the agencies) sends another strong
reminder of the importance of cleaning up and maintaining group health plan
compliance with the federal group health plan mental health and substance abuse
coverage and benefit requirements.
Building upon federal group health plan mental health parity mandates
originally implemented under the Mental Health Parity Act, the MHPAEA generally
requires that any financial requirements or treatment limitations group health
plans impose on mental health and substance use disorder (MH/SUD) benefits not
be restrictive than the predominant financial requirements and treatment
limitations that apply to substantially all medical and surgical benefits.
MHPAEA also imposes several disclosure requirements on group health plans and
health insurance issuers. Not satisfied
with the MHPAEA coverage and disclosure protections, however, Congress
subsequently broadened federal MH/SUD benefit rights under group health plans
through the enactment of the ACA and the Cures Act. Congress also imposed
special requirements and protections for mental health treatment records adds
additional responsibilities for group health plans and their service providers
when dealing with information and records in connection with the administration
of MH/SUD benefits.
Over the past year, the agencies have
responded to the ACA and the Cures Act by tightening their MHPAEA rules and
acting to step up awareness, oversight and enforcement of these requirements.
In the face of these developments and growing enforcement risks and
liabilities, the group health plans, their employer and other sponsors,
fiduciaries, insurers, and their administrative and other service providers
should move quickly to understand and update their plans and practices to
comply with these recent developments while bracing for the likely need to deal
with further expanded disclosure and other additional responsibilities under
the MHPAEA jointly proposed by the Departments on June 16, 2017.
Ensuring proper compliance with these
federal rules is particularly important to avoid triggering the substantial
liability that health plans, their employer and other sponsors, insurers, and
administrators can incur if their health plan violates these mandates. Obviously, plans and their sponsors, insurers
and fiduciaries can expect to pay additional plan expenses necessary to pay
wrongfully denied benefits and other expenditures the plan or its fiduciaries
expend to investigate, defend and resolve claims or compliance audits,
investigations, litigation or actions brought by the Departments, state
insurance regulators with respect to state governments or insurers, or private
litigation by participants or beneficiaries.
Many employer or other plan sponsors may be unaware that these
violations also generally expose employers and other health plan sponsors
to liability to self-identify, self-report on Internal Revenue Service Form
8928 and self-pay and excise tax of up to $100 per participant per day
per uncorrected violation by the due date for filing of their annual
corporate tax return
Speaker: Cynthia Marcotte Stamer, Esq.
|
A Fellow in the American College of Employee
Benefit Counsel, the American Bar Foundation and the Texas Bar Foundation, Ms. Stamer shares her thought leadership,
experience and advocacy on these and other concerns by her service in the
leadership of a broad range of other professional and civic organization
including her involvement as Executive Director of the Coalition on
Responsible Health Policy and its PROJECT COPE; current Vice Chair of the ABA
Tort & Insurance Practice Section Employee Benefits Committee, current
Vice Chair of Policy for the Life Sciences Committee of the ABA International
Section, Past Chair of the ABA Health Law Section Managed Care &
Insurance Section, Past Group Chair, current Defined Contribution Plan
Committee Co-Chair, former Welfare Committee Chair and Co-Chair of the ABA
RPTE Section Employee Benefits Group, immediate past RPTE Representative to
ABA Joint Committee on Employee Benefits Council Representative and current
RPTE Representative to the ABA Health Law Coordinating Counsel, former
Coordinator and a Vice-Chair of the Gulf Coast TEGE Council TE Division, past
Chair of the Dallas Bar Association Employee Benefits & Executive
Compensation Committee, former member of the Board of Directors of the
Southwest Benefits Association and others. |
Ms.
Stamer also is a highly popular lecturer, symposia chair and author, who
publishes and speaks extensively on health and managed care industry, human
resources, employment and other privacy, data security and other technology,
regulatory and operational risk management for the American Bar Association,
ALI-ABA, American Health Lawyers, Society of Human Resources Professionals, the
Southwest Benefits Association, the Society of Employee Benefits
Administrators, the American Law Institute, Lexis-Nexis, Atlantic Information
Services, The Bureau of National Affairs (BNA), InsuranceThoughtLeaders.com,
Benefits Magazine, Employee Benefit News, Texas CEO Magazine, HealthLeaders,
the HCCA, ISSA, HIMSS, Modern Healthcare, Managed Healthcare, Institute of
Internal Auditors, Society of CPAs, Business Insurance, Employee Benefits News,
World At Work, Benefits Magazine, the Wall Street Journal, the Dallas Morning
News, the Dallas Business Journal, the Houston Business Journal, and many other
symposia and publications. She has served
as an Editorial Advisory Board Member for human resources, employee benefit and
other management focused publications of BNA, HR.com, Employee Benefit News,
InsuranceThoughtLeadership.com and many other prominent publications and speaks
and conducts training for a broad range of professional organizations and for
clients, serves on the faculty and planning committee of many workshops,
seminars, and symposia, and on the Advisory Boards of
InsuranceThoughtLeadership.com, HR.com, Employee Benefit News, and many other
publications.
Registration:
Learning Objectives:
ü Summarize key federal group health plan mental health and substance
abuse coverage and disclosure requirements collectively imposed under
the MHPAEA, ACA and Cures Act;
ü Overview of the Departments’ latest guidance on their interpretation of
the MHPAEA coverage and disclosure requirements, taking into account joint
guidance jointly published by the Departments since October, 2016 including the
June 16, 2017 Mental Health Parity Implementation FAQs Part 38, the proposed
Draft MHPA Disclosure Template and PRA Information Request and their potential
implications for health plans and their employers and other sponsors,
fiduciaries, administrators and insurers;
ü Discuss special claims administration requirements and considerations
that claims administrators and fiduciaries should account for when processing
MH/SUB claims and appeals given MHPAEA and ACA claims and appeals requirements;
ü Share insights on certain plan terms and practices to watch for and to
manage common compliance risks based on existing guidance;
ü Review certain special rules affecting authorizations and other
requirements affecting the use, access and disclosure of certain mental health
and substance abuse treatment, payment and other health records imposed under
the HIPAA Privacy Rule;
ü Share other practical considerations & best practices for
compliance and risk management; and
ü Respond to audience participant questions as time permits.
Cost
The cost will
be $199.99 per location for the live webinar and the podcast. You may have as many people as can fit in a
room, hear a conference call and see a computer screen for the live webinar.
Technical Notes
Technical Warning One - Once you have registered you will
need to tell your technical people to set your firewalls to accept email from
two different email addresses: support@peachnewmedia.com and Michael.lombardo@peachnewmedia.com. Confirmation emails and reminders will be
sent from these two different emails.
As of June 1,
2017 anyone using Internet Explorer version 10 or older will not be able to
view a live webcast, or on-demand stream.
You will need to be using a newer version of Internet Explorer.
Technical Warning Two – Freestone is the platform used to
stream the webinar. In the event that
polling questions are incorporated into the webinar, please ensure that your
pop-up blocker is turned off or adjusted so that they are able to appear.
Webinar Recorded for
Future Listening
In addition to
this live webinar, this webinar will be recorded and offered in a streaming
mode (Internet connection required) and a podcast only format (permitting you
to download the recording and use it disconnected from the Internet). The podcast is an MP3 format, audio-only
file, that you can “save as” to your computer hard drive and then move to any
MP3 compatible device. The podcast will not provide the corresponding PPT video
since it is an audio-only file. However,
you can download the PPT from the SPBA website.