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Beth, a member of the Employee Benefits & Executive Compensation practice in Cincinnati, assists employers with the design, implementation and operation of welfare and fringe benefit plans. She advises on Internal Revenue Code, ERISA, COBRA, HIPAA and Affordable Care Act (ACA) compliance and assists clients in navigating the increasingly complex web of federal and state benefit regulations. Her day-to-day work includes counseling clients on the expanding group health plan transparency and reporting requirements, addressing benefit plan considerations related to hot-button issues like reproductive health care and gender affirming care, and helping clients work through more traditional taxation, ERISA, privacy and ACA issues.

A recent excellent New York Times article explains how a change in law first effective in 2022 has quickly come to be used by out-of-network providers to obtain significant overpayments for routine medical procedures.  Not stated in the article is the impact on self-funded group health plans and the sponsors of those plans.  Specifically, the

The Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and the Treasury (the “Departments”) recently released their 2025 Report to Congress on enforcement activity under the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act (“MHPAEA”).

Background

MHPAEA is a federal law that generally requires group health plans and health insurance issuers that provide mental health or substance

On November 4, 2025, the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island in Williams v. Bally’s Management Group, LLC dismissed a participant challenge to an employer’s tobacco surcharge under ERISA, rejecting both statutory discrimination and fiduciary breach theories. The court held that the plaintiff failed to state a claim that the surcharge violated

On July 25 the U.S. Departments of Treasury, Labor and Health and Human Services (“tri-agencies”) released guidance related to the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act (MHPAEA). Among other documents, the guidance includes a proposed update to the MHPAEA regulations and a report to Congress summarizing the tri-agencies’ enforcement efforts related to group health

So your company sponsors a self-insured health care plan, and you’ve been tasked with administering the plan, but in reality, most of the day to day administration is handled a third party administrator (“TPA”). Just curious – do you know what your TPA’s policies are with respect to recovering overpayments? Do you know whether your