Earlier this week the Departments of Health and Human Services, Labor and Treasury issued joint interim regulations (the "Regulations") on grandfathered health plans under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 ("PPACA"). Under PPACA, grandfathered health plans are exempt from certain requirements and are granted a later effective date for complying with others. While PPACA introduced the concept of a grandfathered health plan, the legislation did not provide many details on the requirements of what plans must do to maintain their grandfathered status. These newly-released Regulations are intended to fill many of the gaps in PPACA on these items.

The Regulations provide information on the extent to which changes may be made to a plan without jeopardizing its grandfathered status, introduce anti-abuse and transition rules, and discuss the application of the grandfathered health plan concept to various types of plans, including fully- and self-insured and collectively-bargained plans. A complete analysis of the Regulations will be provided in a future EmployNews article.

A copy of the Regulations may be found here.

A fact sheet and list of frequently asked questions were also released. The fact sheet may be accessed here. The frequently asked questions may be accessed here.

For more information on grandfathered health plans, please see our previous article on the topic here.