Category: Benefits and Compensation

This topic provides guidance on how to handle compensation issues in a way that attracts and retains the best talent and advances the strategic goals of your business. You get news and tips on what’s going on nationally and in the states, and updates on changes in regulations, possible governmental action, and emerging compensation trends.

Record HIPAA Settlement: Advocate Health Care Pays $5.55 Million

Advocate Health Care Network (Advocate) has agreed to pay $5.55 million to settle with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office for Civil Rights (OCR), multiple potential Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) violations involving electronic protected health information (ePHI). This is the largest HIPAA settlement to date against a single entity.

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America’s Most Needed Occupations and What They Pay

Not every job in America is as lavish as the C-suite. Some jobs force workers to get down and dirty, or even put employees lives at risk. These jobs are the backbone of the United States, and as Mike Rowe—of the hit televisions show Dirty Jobs—would say, “Someone has to do it!” In honor of […]

Recent Big-Ticket HIPAA Settlements Drive Home Need for Organizational Commitment

By David Slaughter, JD, Senior Legal Editor The month of July saw two hospitals reach multimillion-dollar Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) privacy and security settlements with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Each case began with that most mundane of data breaches, the stolen laptop, but once HHS investigators started […]

ERISA, FLSA, FMLA Penalties Increased by DOL Rule

By David Slaughter, JD, Senior Legal Editor Maximum penalties for violating many employment and benefits laws were increased, some of them substantially, by the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) in a departmentwide rule published July 1 (81 Fed. Reg. 43429).

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Managing Employee Status Changes Under the Affordable Care Act

By Jennifer Carsen, JD, Senior Legal Editor So, you think you’ve got a pretty good handle on this whole Affordable Care Act (ACA) thing. You know that you’re an applicable large employer (or ALE—and that “ALE” isn’t merely that thing you want to drink a lot of after a day of filling out ACA paperwork).