Consumer Protection Laws & DOL Fiduciary Standards and HSAs

The first guest will be Robin Gelburd, president of FAIR Health. Consumers are frequently exposed to surprise balance bills when they unwittingly receive out-of-network services at in-network facilities. Consumers also receive sizable bills in the wake of receiving emergency care at a facility outside of their plan’s network. In order to address this growing concern—sometimes causing consumers to go into medical bankruptcy—state legislatures are designing legislation that holds a consumer harmless to in-network payment amounts and offers various approaches to how providers should be paid for such services. New York and Connecticut are examples of two such states that have moved in this direction. Other states are contemplating their own creative solutions to this pressing problem and are being watched with keen interest by stakeholders and policymakers.

The second guest will be Kevin Robertson, senior vice president, director of sales, HSA Bank. After months of anticipation about the Department of Labor’s proposed regulatory fiduciary standards guidance, the final DOL regulations were issued on April 6, 2016. More than five years in the making, this guidance impacts many different aspects of retirement plans and some aspects of health benefits, including health savings accounts. These changes entail wide-sweeping impacts to a number of different plans and products that an employer may utilize within their retirement and benefit offerings. While the 600 pages of new regulations were not specifically targeting HSAs, these health accounts were explicitly identified as subject to the new rules. This interview tries to provide a simplified explanation of the regulations and their impact on HSA administrators, advisors and employers/plan sponsors.