Approximately 50 percent of Americans receive health insurance through their employer, making most of those plans subject to the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (“ERISA”). After passage of the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008 (“MHPAEA”), the majority of health plans that cover mental health treatment, including large employer- sponsored […]
One of the hottest current topics in Employee Retirement Income Security Act litigation concerns medical insurance coverage for residential treatment of behavioral health disorders. A recent Utah federal court ruling, Michael D. and Madeline D. v. Anthem Health Plans of Kentucky Inc., 2019 WL 586673 (D. Utah, Feb. 13, 2019), is a prime example. The […]
Disability claim denials can be appealed or resubmitted for reconsideration. If you’ve been injured in an accident, diagnosed with an illness or had to deal with the prospect of a long recovery following surgery, you might need to be out of work to focus on your health. You could be worried more about the hit […]
This is the first of a two-part column. The second part will be published on Thursday. A new ruling from the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals raises a number of interesting issues regarding the limits of coverage under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act as well as how occupation-specific disability is analyzed. In Part […]
While it’s generally accepted that Employee Retirement Income Security Act benefit claimants are not entitled to jury trials, rarely does anyone question the reason why. A recent ruling from a federal court in New York, Cunningham v. Cornell University, 2018 WL 4279466 (S.D. N.Y., Sept. 6, 2018), convincingly explains why jury trials should be permitted […]
We have all seen the letters in the mail. Your employer is updating their benefits policies, and by law, you are required to receive notification summarizing the changes. These notices contain a lot of legal jargon and fine print, and you probably threw them away without much more than a cursory glance. Although these updates […]