EEOC Tries to Harmonize ACA’s Promotion of Employer Wellness Programs with GINA’s Ban Against Employer Access to Genetic Information of Employees and Employees’ Family Members

[Cross-posted from the Genomics Law Report blog]

By

Gina-name-tagThe Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is responsible for enforcing Title II of the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA), which prohibits employers from requesting genetic information (defined broadly) from their prospective, current, or former employees. GINA contains only six limited exceptions to this prohibition, one of which is an exception for wellness programs in which the employee’s participation is voluntary.

On October 30, 2015 the EEOC issued a proposed ruleto amend GINA regulations in an attempt to harmonize them with the Affordable Care Act’s promotion of employer wellness programs to lower health care costs. The proposed rule tries to clarify that employers are permitted to offer incentives for an employee’s spouse to participate in a voluntary wellness program (but not the employee’s other dependents). The permissible incentives are capped at 30% of the total cost of the plan in which the employee and dependents are enrolled. The EEOC’s expressed intent is to treat GINA’s Title I (health insurance) and Title II (employment) provisions similarly. The proposed rule would allow employers to request current and former health status information from an employee’s spouse as part of their participation in the employer-sponsored wellness program. And there’s the rub: the current or former health status of an employee’s spouse is the employee’s own “genetic information” as the term is statutorily defined in GINA. The EEOC has prepared a Q&A page to explain the proposed rule, and the Congressional Research Service issued a report (R44311) on the topic on December 17, 2015. Read More

How Privacy Law Affects Medical and Scientific Research

[Cross-posted from the Genomics Law Report blog]

By John Conley

Over the last five or so years my law practice has focused increasingly on privacy law, both domestic and international. In hindsight, this was a predictable outcome: as an intellectual property lawyer, many of my clients do business on the Internet or are engaged in scientific research and development, with many of the latter in the health care area. These are the very kinds of people who need to worry about privacy—of their customers, users, patients, and subjects. As they started on focusing on privacy concerns, these clients turned to their IP lawyers for help, and my Robinson Bradshaw colleagues and I have tried to stay ahead of their needs.

As a consequence of my growing privacy practice, I am regularly called on to give overviews to other lawyers as well as non-lawyers in the scientific and business communities. I thought it might be useful to devote a GLR post to a privacy law summary targeted at readers who conduct medical and other scientific research. Privacy law is a transnational mess, so this will be a bit longer than I’d like—my apologies, and please don’t shoot the messenger—but I’ll try to cut through the legal jargon.

Sources of Modern Privacy Law Read More