Open Enrollment: The Most Dreaded Time Of The Year For Health Law Attorneys

You'd be much better off consulting with your HR department or your own family members on what plan offerings make sense.

If you are somewhat tuned into the news, or the nagging emails from your HR department, you know the nation is in the midst of open enrollment season for health insurance.

Open enrollment, the annual ritual where you are tasked with determining which of the alphabet soup of HRAs, HSAs, or PPOs are best for you and your family’s health care needs. And no pressure, not like such a simple choice could one day literally mean the difference between life and death. Or less dramatic, at least the difference between a life free of medical debt or one laden with it.

Which is why each year during open enrollment, I would like nothing more than to hide under my desk and avoid all of my colleagues, friends, and family members until the season ends.

As a health law attorney, I am fortunate in that I do not often get hit up by others for personal legal advice. Sure, I am barred in the state and technically could file an appearance and attempt to help you on your DUI case, but I can almost guarantee I would only make matters worse for you and not better.

However, like magic, every open enrollment season my in-house colleagues and I suddenly become the most popular folks in the office and amongst our long lost family and friends.

Usually their questions starts innocently enough. Generally starting as a simple inquiry about the difference between an in-network provider versus an out-of-network one before quickly devolving into a deep philosophical debate ranging from just how much insurance they need for their child to whether they even need insurance at all.

Although I wish I could avoid all such conversations due to the real ramifications my answers may have on them and their families, as an in-house counsel at a health care provider, it is a bit of a double-edged sword.

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To my non-legal colleagues, I am a health law attorney working for a hospital and I should therefore know all there is to know about the field. No matter that I may only specialize in False Claims Act cases, if I want them to continue to turn to my colleagues and I for counsel in the future, we must appear to be knowledgeable in all things health law related.

Which means each year, my colleagues and I spend a little time refreshing on the latest health insurance offerings by our employer so we can fend off the inevitable onslaught of questions.

Of course, we always begin such conversations with advice to consult with our HR department, or their own family members, on what plan offerings make sense for them. But inevitably we will end up serving the role of office insurance agent/life counselor for a few weeks each fall.

Don’t believe me?

Last year, one of my colleagues cornered me and asked if I thought our employer’s insurance offerings were good enough for her and husband to start a family next year or if they should save up in their HSA for one more year before having their first child. She was very serious and I am quite certain she would have followed whatever advice I gave her had I not politely declined to offer an opinion due to the severity of the question.

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So to my non-health law attorneys out there, the next time you think of picking up the phone to call that old classmate of yours who now works in-house for a hospital, maybe think twice. I assure you it is not that we don’t want to help you, it’s that we often know little more than you do.

If you want help navigating your latest medical data breach or medical malpractice case, I am your person, but if you want to know if now is a good time to start your family due to insurance offerings, better stick with consulting HR, not to mention your significant other.


Stephen R. Williams is in-house counsel with a multi-facility hospital network in the Midwest. His column focuses on a little talked about area of the in-house life, management. You can reach Stephen at stephenwilliamsjd@gmail.com.