Christopher Sears Email & Phone Number

Chris Sears concentrates his practice in the field of health care and employee benefits. Sears assists clients in designing and maintaining health and retirement plans and other employee benefits. He is currently working extensively with employers to implement health care reform. He also works with clients in their efforts to protect the privacy of health information pursuant to HIPAA and to share information through regional health information networks.He works with public and private employees including hospitals and other tax-exempt organizations. Sears helps clients design employer-sponsored health plans and other benefits such as cafeteria plans, tuition reimbursement plans, long and short term disability plans, health reimbursement accounts, health savings accounts, and life insurance plans. He also helps them comply with myriad of laws that regulate these plans such as ERISA, the Internal Revenue Code, HIPAA, ADA, FMLA and COBRA.Sears also concentrates on laws regulating the privacy of health information. In particular, he works closely with both health plans and health care providers in their efforts to comply with the complex privacy rules of HIPAA, as well as state privacy laws. He works closely with the nationally-known regional health information sharing network, the Indianapolis Network for Patient Care, and other cross-institutional health data sharing networks. Most recently, Sears served on the Data Use and Reciprocal Support Agreement Team for the National Health Information Network since 2007.He also consults with clients to adopt, maintain and terminate their employee pension and retirement plans in compliance with the Internal Revenue Code and ERISA. In doing so, he assists clients with their 401(k) plans, tax-sheltered annuities, non-qualified deferred compensation arrangements and other qualified and non-qualified plans.