Jeff Pepper Email & Phone Number

Washington, Dc, Us

Drafting and amending multiemployer and state and local government group health plan documents, summary plan descriptions (SPDs), summaries of benefits and coverage (SBCs) in the US West Region (San Francisco Office) assuring compliance with all applicable federal laws and regulations, including ERISA, ACA, HIPAA, MHPAEA, and most recently the No Surprises Act (NSA).

Legislative and Regulatory Tracking and Communication: Tracked legislation before Congress and agency regulations (DOL, HHS, CMS, IRS), providing online written updates to lawyer teams and clients on issues related to fully-insured group health plans, self-funded group health plans, and the No Surprises Act.Research, LexisNexis, and Westlaw: Researched court opinions and agency guidance on employee benefits issues, including IRS Revenue Procedures, Revenue Rulings, Technical Advice Memoranda, General Counsel's Memoranda, Private Letter Rulings, and DOL Opinion Letters.Court Cases, Federal Court Litigation, PACER: Accessed dockets of ERISA federal court cases using PACER to review complaints, briefs, court rulings, case statuses, appeals, presiding judges, and law firms involved in cases. Bluebooking and cite checking.Regulatory Development and Document Review: Analyzed Federal Register on a daily basis, sending email alerts to lawyer teams on urgent employee benefits-related regulatory developments.Marketing, Branding and Writing: Authored and created name for Diceros Law PLLC's online written summaries of legal, legislative, and regulatory developments affecting group health insurance and self-funded health plans: "Diceros Dispatch" (See link below to Diceros Dispatch home page). No Surprises Act: Proficient with key aspects of the No Surprises Act, including the new requirements regarding the elimination of surprise medical bills, the independent dispute resolution process (IDR) for resolving disputes between providers and payers over out-of-network claims, and the new machine-readable data element requirements for group health plans to publish rates for covered services online. Webcasting and Webinars: Conducted online webinars, including PowerPoint slide decks, on various aspects of the No Surprises Act, including the health insurance agent and broker compensation disclosure rules.

Washington, District Of Columbia, Us

Legal Writing and Proofreading: Drafted and proofed Commission orders, notices, proposed and final rules governing public utility companies operating within the District of Columbia.Legal Research: Checked citations and footnotes in Commission orders, notices, and proposed and final rules.Strategic Thinking: Reviewed case files, compiled and analyzed legal and factual information in order to prepare case summaries, draft orders, public notices, and memorandums.Regulatory Tracking: Monitored and tracked relevant public utility and energy supplier cases as they moved through neighboring jurisdictions' Public Service Commissions (Maryland and Virginia).Research: LexisNexis, Westlaw and PACER: Conducted legal research using Westlaw and other online tools to obtain applicable legislative histories, court opinions, docket entries, motions, briefs, complaints, and administrative decisions.Commission Research: Researched Commission orders, filings, public comments, open and closed dockets, and rulemaking documents using the Commission's online e-docket system.Document Review and Editing: Redacted personal and sensitive information (employee names and public utility worksite locations) from Notices of Probable Violations (NOPVs) prior to posting to the Commission's publicly-facing website.

New York, Ny, Us

Legislative Tracking and Communication: Tracked legislation before Congress, providing updates to lawyer teams on issues related to employee benefits, group health insurance, and pension plans.E-Newsletter and Content Management: Updated employee benefits legal, legislative, and regulatory compliance website on a daily basis and sent an email newsletter that reached 5,000 clients each morning. Research, LexisNexis, and Westlaw: Researched court opinions and agency guidance on employee benefits issues, including IRS Revenue Procedures, Revenue Rulings, Technical Advice Memorandums, General Counsel's Memorandums, Private Letter Rulings, and DOL Opinion Letters.Court Cases, Federal Court Litigation, PACER: Accessed dockets of ERISA federal court cases using PACER to review complaints, briefs, court rulings, case statuses, appeals, presiding judges, and law firms involved in cases. Bluebooking and cite checking.Regulatory Development and Document Review: Analyzed Federal Register on a daily basis, sending email alerts to clients on urgent regulatory developments. Drafted and proofed client health plan documents and SPDs.Marketing Material Creation and Editing: Authored marketing materials, promoting website, company surveys, and products. In addition, edited email newsletter content generated by offshore team.Webcasting and Customer Value Proposition: Assisted with monthly webcasts, increasing client subscriptions through legal website value proposition.Training and Process Optimization: Trained colleagues in India to identify and pre-process employee benefits-related website content overnight to have it ready for publication each morning, resulting in time savings of 50% and labor cost savings of 80%.Strategic Thinking, Factiva, and Automation: Created saved search strategies with news aggregator Factiva, allowing employee benefits-related news articles to automatically feed overnight to web content management system. This led to 50% time savings.