Category: Employment

Biden Administration Announces Broad Employer-Based Vaccination Requirements

On September 9, 2021, the Biden Administration announced its new COVID-19 Action Plan (the “Action Plan”), which outlines a six-pronged approach to combat the pandemic.  The wide-ranging Action Plan lays out plans to vaccinate the unvaccinated, further protect the vaccinated, keep schools safely open, increase testing and masking, protect the economic recovery, and improve care...

Biden Administration Orders Long Term Care Facilities to Require COVID-19 Vaccinations To Receive Federal Funds; OSHA Issues Updated COVID-19 Recommendations For All Workplaces

As we have previously written, the landscape for employers in the time of COVID-19, particularly health care employers and long term care facilities, is ever-changing and quickly moving.  In the last year, health care employers have had to navigate state laws, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (“CDC”) and Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services...

Update Regarding Publication of OSHA Emergency Temporary Standard

On June 10, 2021, Dorsey’s Labor & Employment attorneys outlined an Emergency Temporary Standard (“ETS”) issued by OSHA.  At the time, the ETS was not an official regulation because it had not yet been published in the Federal Register.  On June 21, 2021, the ETS was published and, for covered healthcare employers, the compliance clock...

OSHA Issues COVID-19 Workplace Safety Rule for Healthcare Employers

The Dorsey Health Law blog team keeps readers up-to-date on relevant topics in the health care industry. In order to do so, the members of the blog team communicate regularly with other practice groups within the firm for applicable updates from client publications. For this post, we would like to thank Dorsey’s Rebecca Bernhard, Aaron...

Considerations for Health Care Employers under Iowa’s Vaccine Passport Law and Recent CDC, CMS and EEOC Guidelines

One of the last pieces of legislation the Iowa legislature sent to Governor Kim Reynolds’ desk for guaranteed signature was a bill banning vaccine passports in Iowa.  House File 889 contains several prohibitions regarding inquiries into a person’s COVID-19 vaccine status.  For entities that contract with the state government or otherwise receive state funding, the...

Coronavirus Lawsuits More Than Double In 2021; Those Against Healthcare Providers Steadily Increase

Despite widespread vaccine availability and the corresponding optimism about returning to “normal,” the coronavirus pandemic continues to spawn hundreds of employment and health-related lawsuits.  Many of these lawsuits have been aimed at employers in the healthcare sector and relate to workplace safety, retaliation, and wrongful termination or wrongful denial of leave.  In fact, since our...

Don’t Get Bitten by Your COBRA Notices

In a growing wave of class action lawsuits, plaintiffs are targeting employers who have allegedly failed to provide proper notice of health care coverage under the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1985 (“COBRA”).  The wave prompted at least six new lawsuits in 2019 alone, and some have already netted seven-figure settlements.  To avoid this...