Photo of Diane Dygert

Diane Dygert

Subscribe to Diane Dygert's Posts
Contact:Read more about Diane Dygert

Seyfarth Synopsis: This past Monday, the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued its final rule aimed at strengthening the HIPAA Privacy rules as they are applied to reproductive health data.

On the heels of the release of the 2022 US Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the Biden Administration directed the Federal agencies to examine what they could do to protect women’s health and privacy. Shortly thereafter, HHS released guidance under HIPAA related to reproductive health care services under a health plan, focusing on information required to be disclosed by law, for law enforcement purposes, and to avert a serious threat to health or safety (see our earlier Alert here). Then, in April 2023, HHS issued proposed modifications to the HIPAA Privacy Rule aimed at these concerns. A year later, the agency finalized those rules on April 22, 2024 – the Final Rule.Continue Reading HHS Strengthens HIPAA Rules to Protect Reproductive Health Privacy

Employers looking to enhance their suite of employee benefit programs, and focused on lessons learned during the pandemic on wellbeing, are interested in providing greater access to wellness tools. And, the vendors who support those tools are more than happy to provide them. Global spend in the health and wellness market would be around $24.8 billion in 2023 according to a study by Kilo Health. Wellness apps and wearables abound in all sorts of areas — from counting steps to nutrition to mental health to physical fitness to financial fitness. These tools are relatively inexpensive to provide and easily accessible to the workforce – many times with just a simple download to a smartphone. And, best of all they’re completely private with no middle man, and only the employee seeing their own data and progress. Right? Well — not so fast.Continue Reading Wellness Apps and Privacy

freestocks-I_pOqP6kCOI-unsplash

By this point, most people in the employee benefits space have heard about the MOVEit and Retirement Clearing House (RCH) cyber incidents, which could directly impact employers’ benefit plans. The MOVEit file transfer application is used by a number of vendors, including those that locate missing plan participants or find information regarding deceased plan participants (e.g., PBI Research Services).  RCH is often used by retirement plans to facilitate benefit transfers, including for IRA rollovers. Other plan vendors/subcontractors  may also use the MOVEit software application or subcontract with RCH for their plan services.  Actual and potential victims have included state and federal government agencies as well as companies across a variety of industries (and their benefit plans) who were using MOVEit or RCH, or who engaged with service providers who used these tools.Continue Reading Multiple Cyber Incidents Impact Employee Benefit Plans and Participants

ian-hutchinson-U8WfiRpsQ7Y-unsplash (2)

As we have been covering, the Supreme Court has overturned Roe v. Wade in their Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, leaving it to states to regulate access to abortion in their territory. The Biden Administration’s response to the overturning of Roe v. Wade in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization is taking shape and it has directed the Federal governmental agencies to look at what they can and should do to protect women’s health and privacy. Over the last few weeks, those agencies have been weighing in.

Initially, during the week of June 27th, we saw the following agency activity:Continue Reading Federal Government Response to Dobbs Begins to Take Shape