Join Us On March 19 for “Everything You Need to Know About Policies and Guidelines for Hiring and Terminating Foreign Workers"
Chapter Discussion Group: “PHR and SPHR: Certification and Recertification”
2003 Dinner Meetings Qualify For Recertification Credit
Dulles Chapter Board Vacancy: Legislative Liaison
Welcome To New Members
Board Meeting Minutes
Certification Test Results
Mentoring Program Champion Needed
Catch The Newsletter Every Month
Upcoming SHRM/HRCI Exam Prep Course
Need Recertification Credits?
"Exploring Labor Relations In The Commonwealth"
Update on 2003 State Conference
2003 HR Leadership Awards: Nominate Your Outstanding HR Leader
NOVA SHRM Professional Development Seminar
Marymount University Information Session
Mark Your Calendar
Article: 10 Steps Employers Must Take Now To Ensure HIPAA Privacy Compliance
Check Out Previous Newsletters

Join Us On March 19 for “Everything You Need to Know About Policies and Guidelines for Hiring and Terminating Foreign Workers" With Liz Stern and Joyce Oliner of Shaw Pittman

U.S. immigration agencies administer a variety of visa programs to enable U.S. companies to hire international staff. The specific visas available range from those for short-term business visits to work visas that allow foreign nationals to work with the U.S. company for several years. In addition, U.S. companies may utilize various vehicles to sponsor foreign nationals for permanent residency status. If you have been looking for all the “ins and outs” that will enable your firm to take advantage of international talent while retaining the flexibility to tailor staffing needs to a changing economy, please join us in March and learn all about employment law issues covering hiring and termination of foreign workers. Hear the latest on the impact of security trends on the visa process now that INS is transitioning to the Department of Homeland Security.

Liz Stern is partner and head of Shaw Pittman’s business immigration practice group. She represents domestic and foreign corporate clients on a wide range of immigration matters and works closely with Government agencies and the Members and Committees of Congress involved in developing immigration laws. Ms. Stern speaks fluent Spanish and regularly speaks and writes about immigration issues for domestic and international organizations. She earned her J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law.

Joyce Oliner, a graduate of the University of Wisconsin Law School and the University of Virginia School of Law, is co-chair of the employment group at Shaw Pittman and represents management on a wide range of employment matters. She frequently helps employers draft employment policies and agreements and is called upon to conduct sensitive internal investigations of employee discrimination complaints.

Welcome our sponsor, Vince Polentes of Zone Pay/IwaitLess. You may learn more about Zone Pay/IwaitLess by visiting online at www.zonepay.com.

This program has been approved for 1.0 recertification credit hour toward PHR and SPHR recertification through HRCI. For more information, visit www.hrci.org.

Chapter Discussion Group: “PHR and SPHR: Certification and Recertification” Thursday, March 6

Please confirm your attendance to Cindy Loison at cloisonhr@aol.com. We look forward to seeing you there.

2003 Dinner Meetings Qualify For Recertification Credit

Dulles Chapter Certification Representative Kurt Cowles recently received notification from HRCI (Human Resource Certification Institute) that all 2003 chapter meetings, with the exception of those held in April and December, have been pre-approved for recertification credit by HRCI. Attendees may count attendance at these sessions as 1.0 hour of recertification credit. Look for the HRCI seal on future chapter flyers and newsletters. As a general rule, credit is provided on an hour-to-hour basis exclusive of meals and breaks. Our thanks to Kurt for his diligence in obtaining these approvals!

Dulles Chapter Board Vacancy: Legislative Liaison

Due to a recent relocation, the Legislative Liaison position on the Dulles Chapter Board of Directors is vacant and we are seeking a volunteer to fill the position during the remainder of 2003. The duties of this position include monitoring state and local government activities and providing timely information to the Board of Directors and the members, initiating action in response to legislative alerts from SHRM, and presenting legislative reports or updates to the Board and to the membership at monthly dinner meetings and via the monthly newsletter. The Legislative Liaison attends all monthly dinner meetings and Board of Directors meetings.

Numerous sources of information are available, including the SHRM website, SHRM’s HRVoice program, the State Legislative Affairs Director, and the SHRM headquarters staff as well as our own chapter members. If you are interested or have questions, contact President Judy Perrault (vprez@mindbank.com)

Board Meeting Minutes

The minutes from the Board meetings are available on our web site - please take a few minutes to review them in full. Click Here to View.

Welcome To New Members

Laura Chillura, PHR
HR Generalist
Mindbank Consulting Group, LLC

Michael Carpenter
Coordinator of Admissions
Northern VA Campus, Shenandoah University

Maggie Chan, CCP
Senior Analyst
Fairfax County

Sarah Cower, PHR
HR Consultant

Gerald Horna
Retired HR Specialist
BAE Systems

Wistaria Krigger
Personnel Department Manager
Greenblum & Bernstein, PLC

Bonnie Little
Business Development Specialist
Sperry Associates Federal Credit Union

Amy Rubin
Manager, Compensation & Benefits
CFC

Tanya Wills
Resourcing Services Analyst
Accenture HR Services

Certification Test Results

Mentoring Program Champion Needed

At last month’s chapter meeting, President Judy Perrault discussed one of her primary goals for 2003 - creation of a mentor-protégé program for the chapter. She requested ideas for creating the program based on members’ personal experiences within their organizations and with other human resource organizations. Judy passed a clipboard at the January meeting and requested attendees to indicate interest in becoming either a mentor or protégé. Response was excellent! Armed with this information and feedback, we are seeking a volunteer champion to launch the mentor-protégé program. Duties will include developing the framework, organizing the program, and reporting results to the Board and to the membership. If you are interested in pursuing this ground-breaking opportunity, contact Judy at vprez@mindbank.com.

Catch The Newsletter Every Month

We keep you and other members informed about news and upcoming Human Resources events via the monthly Dulles Chapter newsletter. The newsletter is distributed to members and guests at the monthly dinner meetings. If you are unable to attend a monthly meeting, you may catch the newsletter online effective the meeting day. Don’t miss out! Bookmark this page and print your own copy anytime.

Upcoming SHRM/HRCI Exam Prep Course Sponsored By HRA-NCA

To help you prepare for the May PHR/SPHR exams, HRA-NCA is offering a complete SHRM Certification Prep Course. The class includes formal classroom instruction and a copy of the SHRM Learning System with CD-ROM. The instructor will be Paul Shibelski, SPHR, who has an extensive background in preparing HR professionals for the certification exam. The class is limited to 30 students.

Start Date: March 21
End Date: April 5 (Four classes to be held on Fridays and Saturdays, March 21 & 22 and April 4 & 5)
Meeting Time: 7:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.
Location: SHRM Headquarters, 1800 Duke Street, Alexandria, VA 22314
Registration Deadline: March 1
Cost: $875.00

For more information and to register, visit www.hra-nca.org and click on Events.

Need Recertification Credits

George Mason University, Office of Continuing Professional Education is offering HRCI approved recertification courses!

Strategic Human Resource Management:
Examines strategic HR management and planning by applying theories and methods of strategic, tactical and operational planning and their relationship to HR. Explores the multiple roles HR plays in assisting organizations to gain and sustain competitive advantages in a fast-paced environment. Offered online using WebCT, a highly interactive method of engaging participants in discussion of topics, tools and cases through threaded discussion, case analysis and readings.
When & Where: March 3-24, 2003 On Line
Instructor: Paul Shibelski, MBA, SPHR

Registration Fee: $495 per person

Special Discount: Register three or more people together and receive a 10% discount.

Military Leave: Understanding Employers’ Rights and Obligations
Navigates the complex area of the Uniformed Services Employment and Re-Employment Rights Act (USERRA) and simplifies an employer’s requirements to comply with USERRA. Discusses how to handle the employee’s departure from the workforce, what kind of compensation and/or benefits are required to be provided to the employee during the leave, and what re-employment rights an employee may or may not possess when returning from military leave. Approved for 1.5 recertification credits.

Sponsored by: American Institute of Human Resources (www.aihr.com) (202-429-2447)

When and Where: March 5, 1:00-2:30 p.m. (EST) Presented Via Teleconference

Instructor: Daniel Feldman, Krupin O’Brien LLC

Registration Fee: $199

"Exploring Labor Relations In The Commonwealth"
May 13-14, Omni Hotel, Richmond, VA

Hear “best practices” from Virginia organizations that have positive labor relations. Learn how recent changes in workforce development programs, such as apprenticeship, are impacting your organization. Network with prominent human resources professionals and labor and government representatives.

Sponsored by: VCU Virginia Labor Studies Center
When: May 13-14, Omni Hotel, Richmond, VA
Keynote Speakers: Governor Mark Warner, Honorable Michael Schewel, VA Secretary of Commerce and Trade
Registration Fee: 3 or more participants: $235.00 for registration by April 25
Information: (804) 828-7484, (800) 793-VLSC, www.vlsc.bus.vcu.edu

Update on 2003 State Conference
“HR - The Next Generation:
Advancing the Profession - Advancing Ourselves”
Fairview Park Marriott, October 15-17, 2003

Alice Waagen of Dulles SHRM has graciously volunteered to chair the Volunteer Committee with assistance from Maggie Chan, also from Dulles SHRM. If you are interested in volunteering prior to or during the 2003 State Conference, please contact either Alice or Maggie directly:

Alice: worklearn@aol.com
Maggie: maggie.chan@fairfaxcounty.gov

More news will be available in the upcoming months.

2003 HR Leadership Awards: Nominate Your Outstanding HR Leader

The 2003 HR Leadership Awards Gala will be held on Tuesday, June 3, at the McLean Hilton at Tysons Corner. The deadline for nominating your outstanding HR leader and/or team is March 15. Nomination guidelines and forms are available at www.hrleadership.org. Sponsorship opportunities are also available.

NOVA SHRM Professional Development Seminar
“E_Speak: Everything the Savvy HR Professional Should Know Before Hitting the Send Button”
Tuesday, March 18, The Tower Club, Tysons Corner

E-mail. It’s speedy, efficiency, and indispensable. But when it’s misused, or just poorly crafted, it can crush credibility, alienate co-workers or clients - even derail careers. Learn how to identify your own and others’ e-style and how to be a more effective electronic communicator. Also get the latest on telephone best practices, voice-mail/speakerphone, cell phone courtesy, virtual meeting protocol, and cube etiquette. Facilitator Maureen Sullivan, Director of DBM Publishing, is an expert in the areas of enhanced workplace communication and author of E-SPEAK: Everything You Need to Know Before You Hit the Send Button.

Date: Tuesday, March 18
Time: 8:00 a.m.-11:00 a.m.
Place: The Tower Club at Tysons Corner
Price: NOVA SHRM & Local SHRM Chapter Members - $50; National SHRM Members - $75; All Other Attendees - $100

Registration includes continental breakfast and all workshop materials. For more information, contact Marcy Mont at novashrm@bm2.com.

Marymount University Information Session

Marymount University will hold an information session on its Human Resource programs on Saturday, February 22 at 11:30 a.m. in the Reinsch Library Auditorium located on the University’s Main Campus - 2807 N. Glebe Road, Arlington. The University offers undergraduate, graduate, and certificate programs in the HR field. Master’s programs include Human Performance Systems, Human Resource Management, Organization Development, and Health Care Management. The M.S. in Organizational Leadership and Innovation, a business management program, is offered at Marymount’s Loudoun Academic Center in Sterling.

For more information about the session, call Jackie Shillito at (703) 284-5903, e-mail grad.admissions@marymount.edu, or visit www.marymount.edu.

Mark Your Calendars

Upcoming SHRM Conferences and Seminars

• 20th Annual Employment Law and Legislative Conference, March 10-12, 2003, Washington, D.C. For information and to register, visit www.shrm.org/conferences/leg or call Customer Service at 800-283-SHRM, Option #3.
• 26th Annual Conference & Exposition of the SHRM Global Forum, March 31-April 2, 2003, Los Angeles, CA. For information, visit www.shrm.org/conferences.
• 34th Annual Conference and Exposition of the Employment Management Association (EMA), April 23-25, 2003, Las Vegas, NV. For information, visit www.shrm.org/conferences.
• 2003 HR Leadership Awards Gala, June 3, 2003, McLean Hilton at Tysons Corner. For information, visit www.hrleadership.org www.hrleadership.org.
• 55th Annual SHRM Conference and Exposition, June 22-25, 2003, Orlando, FL. For more information, visit /www.shrm.org/conferences/annual.
• 2003 VA SHRM State Conference, October 15-17, 2003 at the Fairview Park Marriott. Learn more at www.novashrm.org.

2003 Chapter Dinner Meetings

• March 19, 2003 - “Everything You Need to Know About Policies and Guidelines for Hiring and Terminating Foreign Workers” with Liz Stern and Joyce Oliner, Shaw Pittman
• April 16, 2003 - “Special Presentation by Susan R. Meisinger, President, SHRM” with Leesburg SHRM Chapter
• May 21, 2003 - “Reserves at the Ready” with Bill Albright, Director, Quality of Work Life and Benefits, Mitre
• June 18, 2003 - “Panel Discussion on Benefits - Costs and Latest Trends” with Dave Downer and our panel of experts
• July, 2003 - NO MEETING
• August 20, 2003 - “Compensation Trends” with Mark Avery, MarketPay Associates
• September 17, 2003 - “From Expatriation to Repatriation” with Christine Smith, Wolf Group
• October 15, 2003 - “Diversity” with Katherine Huston, Freddie Mac
• November 19, 2003 - “Background and Drug Screening” with Vicki Tilton, Edge Information Management
• December 3, 2003 - Annual Holiday Party
• December 10, 2003 - Transition Board Meeting

Article: 10 Steps Employers Must Take Now To Ensure HIPAA Privacy Compliance
By Serena G. Simons and Lisa T. Murphy
Miller & Chevalier Chartered

More and more companies are becoming aware of new Federal privacy regulations (the “HIPAA Privacy Rule”) that will have a direct impact on how they structure and administer employee health benefits. The first compliance date is alarmingly close - April 14, 2003! These new regulations are part of a larger regulatory package called HIPAA Administrative Simplification. HIPAA Administrative Simplification is intended to make the health care information system more cost effective and efficient by requiring standardized electronic transmission of certain claims-related information.

Almost every employer that offers health benefits to its employees will need to comply with all of HIPAA Administrative Simplification, including the HIPAA Privacy Rule, because the whole regulatory package applies to employer-sponsored group health plans.

This article describes 10 basic steps your company should take now to ensure it complies with the HIPAA Privacy Rule.

Step 1: Determine If Your Group Health Plan Is a Covered Entity
The only group health plans that will not be subject to HIPAA are those that have fewer than 50 participants (i.e., covered employees) and are self-administered. An example of such a plan would be a self-administered health flexible spending arrangement with 49 or fewer participants. An insured health plan with 49 or fewer participants, however, would be subject to HIPAA because it is not self-administered.

Step 2: Determine Your Compliance Date
Not all group health plans must comply by April 14, 2003. Group health plans with less than $5 million in premiums paid during the last full fiscal year before April 14, 2003 (for fully-insured plans) or in claims paid during the last full fiscal year before April 14, 2003 (for self-funded plans) are considered “small health plans” and have an extra year to comply - through April 14, 2004.

Step 3: Determine Your Compliance Burden
The HIPAA Privacy Rule contains a multitude of requirements. Not all group health plans, however, are treated equally. Group health plans using and accessing protected health information must comply with all of the Privacy Rule’s requirements. Self-insured group health plans also typically have a heavier compliance burden. Some group health plans may be able to minimize their compliance burden by using only summary health information - generally, information from which individuals cannot be identified.

Step 4: Appoint a Privacy Official
If your plan is self-insured, or if your fully-insured plan uses protected health information, you will have to comply with the Privacy Rule’s administrative requirements. In order to do so, you will be required to appoint a privacy official, who is responsible for your company’s compliance with the Privacy Rule, including all of its administrative requirements. These requirements, in summary form, include:

• Appointing a privacy official
• Safeguarding protected health information
• Establishing mitigation procedures in the event of a privacy violation
• Establishing numerous written privacy policies and procedures
• Establishing a complaint procedure
• Not retaliating or intimidating someone who seeks to assert a privacy right
• Training plan sponsor personnel
• Establishing sanctions for HIPAA privacy violations
• Maintaining documentation of compliance

Step 5: Review Your Current Uses of Protected Health Information
The Privacy Rule prohibits the use by, or disclosure of, protected health information from your group health plan unless the use or disclosure is specifically permitted by the Rule. The Rule applies to uses and disclosures by the employer/plan sponsor as well as by any of the group health plan’s service providers (including its TPA). You should carefully review the Rule to ensure that your uses and disclosures comply. Be particularly careful of internal disclosure you have historically made, but which are not really necessary for any of the permitted purposes such as plan administration.

Step 6: Amend Your Plan Documents
If you need to receive protected health information from your group health plan in order to continue to perform plan-related administration functions, you will be required to amend your plan documents. Those amendments must specify who uses protected health information for plan administration purposes and what those purposes are. The amendments also must contain certain promises about safeguarding the information you receive. If your plan documents are not amended by April 14, 2003 (April 14, 2004 for small plans), and if you have not certified that the amendments have been made, the plan sponsor will be prohibited from receiving any protected health information from the group health plan.

Step 7: Draft Your Privacy Policies and Procedures
If your group health plan is self-insured, or if your fully-insured plan receives protected health information, the Privacy Rule requires you to maintain written policies and procedures implementing all of the Rule’s requirements for your group health plan. The Rule requires numerous policies and procedures and contains specific content requirements, but provides no models and does not require any standard format. Group health plans will need to design policies and procedures best suited to their business and information practices.

Step 8: Issue Your Notice of Privacy Practices
If your group health plan is self-insured, then you will have to create, maintain, and distribute to plan participants a notice of privacy practices. Full-insured group health plans must maintain, but are not required to distribute, a notice of privacy practices only if they receive protected health information. The Privacy Rule requires the privacy notice to summarize the group health plan’s privacy practices, as described in its written policies and procedures. The notice must also describe every disclosure the group health plan is permitted to make under the law (even if the group health plan does not intend to make each of those disclosures). In addition to other requirements, the notice must tell participants how to complain to the group health plan or the Federal Government regarding the group health plan’s privacy compliance.

Step 9: Amend Your Service Provider Contracts
Group health plans will need to amend (or enter into) written agreements with their service providers. These agreements are called “business associate agreements.” The Privacy Rule requires certain group health plans to enter into these special contracts with service providers who will receive or create protected health information on behalf of the group health plan. The date for having a business associate contract in place depends on whether a service provider agreement is written or oral, whether it is renewed prior to a certain date, and whether the group health plan qualifies as a small health plan.

Step 10: Train Your Plan Sponsor Workforce
A group health plan must train its plan sponsor workforce on its privacy policies and procedures so that those workforce members can carry out their jobs relating to the group health plan. This training must take place prior to the group health plan’s compliance date.

Adapted from HIPAA Privacy Workbook for Group Health Plans by Serena G. Simons and Lisa T. Murphy, ã2003 Miller & Chevalier Chartered. The HIPAA Privacy Workbook contains more than 50 model documents for group health plan privacy compliance and is sold through the SHRMStore at www.shrm.org/shrmstore . For more information, see www.millerchevalier.com/hipaa.asp or write to privacy@milchev.com .

That’s all for this month unless you have any ideas or suggestions? This is your chapter - let us know what’s on your mind!

Judy Perrault
President
Dulles SHRM
vprez@mindbank.com