THE RETURN OF THE HOUSE CALL

Rather than have employees misuse emergency rooms for minor ailments, Microsoft and some other employers are beginning to contract with providers who can deliver health care to employees via the old-fashioned house call. Technology makes it easy to transport a doctor’s tools of the trade, visits are unhurried, and the cost is far less than an ER visit.

Microsoft employees may be among the most innovative when it comes to computer software, but that does not mean they make wise health care decisions.

Take costly and unnecessary emergency room visits. Cecily Hall, Microsoft’s director of U.S. benefits, noticed employees and dependents were spending twice the amount of time in the emergency room than the national average for a company like Microsoft, which covers 125,000 people in the United States. According to a Watson Wyatt Worldwide analysis of claims data from large employers, 142 people under the age of 65 use the emergency room annually per one thousand enrollees in a company health plan.

Hall says the company’s health care costs were going up because of unnecessary emergency room visits. "Our enrollees were making ill-informed decisions," she says. Jeremy Smerd BenefitsLink.com May 9, 2007

EMPLOYERS, INSURERS BEGIN TO REDUCE OR ELIMINATE PRESCRIPTION DRUG CO-PAYS FOR SOME CHRONIC DISEASE MEDICATIONS

The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday examined how an increased number of employers and health insurers have begun to reduce or eliminate co-payments for certain medications for chronic diseases as part of an effort to "curb soaring health care costs" by "preventing costly health crises down the road." According to the Journal, "mounting evidence" indicates that higher co-pays for certain treatments might not "make long-term economic sense" because they have "discouraged some people from taking essential medications."

A 2004 RAND study of more than 80 companies and commercial health plans found that individuals who took medications for chronic diseases on a regular basis reduced their treatments by between 8% and 23% when their co-pays doubled. In addition, early "experiments with providing free drugs for chronic disease have produced results -- reducing costs and helping people stay out of the hospital and emergency rooms," the Journal reports.

Employers such as Marriott International, Procter & Gamble, Eastman Chemical and Pitney Bowes have begun to reduce or eliminate co-pays for certain medications. Andrew Scibelli -- manager of the health management programs at Florida Power & Light, which has considered the reduction or elimination of co-pays for medications for diabetes and coronary artery disease -- said, "Cost shifting (onto employees) is the easier way to attack cost. But it comes right back at you because you're not attacking the root cause."   May 08, 2007 BenefitLinks.com KaiserNetwork.org

EMPLOYMENT ATTORNEYS SCRAMBLE AS IRS TOUGHENS DEFERRED COMPENSATION RULES

Labor and employment attorneys nationwide are scrambling to ensure employers are in compliance with new federal rules governing deferred-compensation plans that could expose employees to substantial financial risks. Under the broad scope of the new rules, many common business practices -- such as stock options, bonuses and severance policies -- may be deemed deferred compensation subject to tougher standards and stiff penalties that didn't exist before. The deadline for compliance is Dec. 31.  The National Law Journal Law.com May 10, 2007

LOCAL 580, ORNAMENTAL IRONWORKERS, TO PAY $800,000 TO PARTIALLY SETTLE CONTEMPT ACTION BY EEOC

Union Allegedly Refused to Refer Journeypersons for Work On Equal Basis Due to Race and National Origin

Local 580, Ornamental Iron Workers, a construction trade union in New York City, will pay $800,000 and provide substantial remedial relief to partially settle a contempt action filed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the agency announced today.

The EEOC had charged that Local 580 failed and refused to refer nonwhite journeypersons to jobs on the same basis that it referred its white journeyperson workers because of their race and national origin, which resulted in a substantial disparity in the hours worked between the two groups. According to the EEOC’s contempt action, filed on June 4, 2001, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, for the period of September 1, 1992 to August 31, 2004, Local 580 did not refer nonwhite journeyperson workers to jobs on a nondiscriminatory basis. The partial settlement covers the referral period of September 1, 1992 to August 31, 2004.

Race and national origin discrimination violate Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as well as the court’s prior order on journeyperson referral. The EEOC’s settlement of the contempt portion of the case has been approved by U.S. District Judge Robert L. Carter.

The EEOC’s contempt action alleged that Local 580 violated the court’s previous orders on the referral of journeyperson workers on a nondiscriminatory basis, the apprentice-to-journeyperson ratio requirement on job sites, and the implementation of computerized recordkeeping and reporting systems. The EEOC had obtained a partial settlement on the apprentice-to-journeyperson ratio requirement violation in 2005. The EEOC is continuing to monitor Local 580’s compliance with the court’s order on the computerized recordkeeping and referral systems. www.eeoc.gov  May 8, 2007

ALEMAN V. CHUGACH SUPPORT SERVS., INC.

In an employment discrimination suit against companies owned by Native Alaskans alleging violations of 42 U.S.C. section 1981 and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, summary judgment for defendants is affirmed in part where any duty to explain the provisions of a collective bargaining agreement to employees with limited English skills belongs principally with the union which represents them, but reversed in part where the exemption from suit under Title VII enjoyed by Alaska Native Corporations does not immunize the defendants from suit under the separate and independent cause of action established by Section 1981.  FindLaw.com May 7, 2007

KING V. PA CONSULTING GROUP, INC.

In a dispute arising from arising from plaintiff's acrimonious departure from his former employer, and centering on a series of non-compete provisions contained in plaintiff's employment contract, a judgment against plaintiff on all but a invasion of privacy claim and for employer on a breach of loyalty counterclaim is affirmed over the parties' challenges to the district court's: 1) determination that the non-compete provisions were enforceable; 2) submission of a breach of contract claim to the jury; 3) eve of trial discovery ruling; 4) denial of plaintiff's motion for a new trial; and 5) denial of defendant's motion for judgment as a matter of law and its motion for attorneys' fees. FindLaw.com May 11, 2007

OPETA V. NORTHWEST AIRLINES PENSION PLAN FOR CONTRACT EMPLOYEES

A judgment finding that plaintiff was not "totally and permanently" disabled, and therefore ineligible for a disability pension benefit under an ERISA-governed plan, is reversed where the district court abused its discretion when, in conducting a de novo review of the plan's denial of benefits, it admitted evidence extrinsic to the administrative record because the circumstances did not clearly establish that the evidence was necessary to the district court's review. FindLaw.com May 11, 2007