Wellness program regulations: The rollercoaster ride from hell

With all the new benefits compliance challenges employers face this year, Ed and Scott take something of a breather to revisit an old friend. Corporate wellness programs are now fully entrenched in corporate America, still operating under the venerable HIPAA and Affordable Care Act rules that employers came to grips with long ago. But the party-crashing EEOC continues to snipe around the rules, and after all these years, still can’t get its wellness program act together.

In the latest episode of ERISA is a friend of mine, the boys describe the on again-off again, on again-off again EEOC approach to wellness programs, and address important questions like:

• How is the EEOC like those annoying people who constantly inject themselves into a conversation but are always wrong?
• Should employers bring their wellness programs to a halt waiting on the EEOC? (Spoiler alert: Uh, no.)
• Why is the passive voice not discernable by Scott? Or should we ask, why can’t Scott discern the passive voice?
• If Congress doesn’t pass conflicting laws, can’t the EEOC just leave well enough alone?
• Why does Scott think that, just when it seems Congress can’t do less, it really can?