any employers establish wellness programs for their employees and hire third-party vendors to administer them. A recent North Carolina case highlights why employers should have counsel review any wellness program

On June 14, 2016, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC or Commission) participated in the White House United State of Women Summit.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration has released new guidelines emphasizing the requirement employers treat temporary workers the same as existing employees with respect to workplace safety.

President Trump named Victoria Lipnic as Acting Chair of the EEOC on January 25, 2017.

This month, NLRB Judge Robert A. Ringler struck down numerous policies (17 in total) in a non-unionized employee handbook, concluding that those policies all violated Sections 7 and/or 8 of the National Labor Relations Act.

Preventing harassment has been an EEOC enforcement priority since 2013, and was included as a priority in its Strategic Enforcement Plan for 2017-2021.

Effective September 12, 2016, Beneficiary and Family Centered Care (BFCC) Quality Improvement Organizations (QIOs) resumed their hospital initial patient status reviews.

On June 30, the Office of Civil Rights (OCR) announced the first HIPAA settlement agreement with a business associate.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has issued notification letters to hospice providers that are not in compliance with the Hospice Quality Reporting Program requirements.

​The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights and Oregon Health & Science University recently entered into a resolution agreement to settle potential violations of HIPAA's Privacy and Security Rules.

Violations of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) generally involve computer breaches or procedural snafus. But a recent incident involving a mailing by insurer Aetna illustrates that HIPAA obligations are equally applicable to paper communication.

​In recent weeks, hundreds of businesses around the country have been hit by an email "phishing" scam that is both brilliant in its exploitation of workplace power dynamics and potentially devastating in its effects.

A sophisticated hacker can cloak the origination point of an attack, making it hard to hit the actual attacker.

A recently publicized settlement with the Office of Civil Rights of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services highlights that it is not only important to have a HIPAA-compliant form of business associate agreement, but also to train staff to identify and carefully analyze when a BAA is required.

This posture should be particularly concerning for US-based companies who process the personal data of EU residents.

On October 10, 2017, 76 companies filed a brief with the United States Supreme Court urging it to review Evans v. Georgia Regional Hospital. The companies include Citrix Systems, Inc., RBC Capital Markets, Microsoft, Morgan Stanley, Google, Apple, American Airlines, Facebook, Uber, Starbucks, and the Miami Heat NBA franchise.

Earlier this month, the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ("EEOC" or "Commission") issued its annual Performance and Accountability Report, which highlights the Commission's enforcement activity over the prior year. The Report is of interest to employers because, among other reasons, it highlights the Commission's enforcement focus areas and might foreshadow enforcement trends in the coming year.

Many employers include in their attendance policies a specific procedure by which employees must "call-in" to report an absence from work.

The end of the year is rapidly approaching! To avoid costly penalties that can arise from inadvertent errors in the year-end rush, plan sponsors should begin talking with their service providers now about what must be done by year-end.

​​Over the past several years, the major credit card networks (VISA and MASTERCARD) have begun the process of converting credit card usage in the United States to the EMV standard.