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The U.S. Supreme Court鈥檚 recent ruling on the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act opens the door to a new wave of provisions that health care and benefits attorneys must interpret for their clients in an increasingly complex regulatory climate.

Lorne Dauenhauer, a Lane Powell shareholder, has practiced as an employee benefits attorney for more than 20 years and notes that over the last decade he has seen a pronounced jump in regulatory activity.

鈥淎 new law or regulation that was significant used to come out every four or five years. In about 1996, they started coming every couple of years,鈥� he says. 鈥淚t used to be just the pension side, and now it鈥檚 pension, executive compensation and health care. The amount of information (the government) is throwing at benefits attorneys is amazing.鈥�

Dauenhauer points out that this year鈥檚 American Jobs Act included 137 pages on executive compensation alone. With so much information to digest and interpret for clients, attorneys may need to consider a new way of determining their practice specialty, he says.

鈥淚鈥檓 starting to see the case for specializing even further, like either health benefits or retirement benefits and executive compensation because it鈥檚 nearly impossible to do both,鈥� Dauenhauer says.

Kelly Hagan, a Schwabe, Williamson & Wyatt shareholder who specializes in health care regulation, says he spends at least an hour a day reading new material from an array of agencies. He waded through the Affordable Care Act in preparation for the Supreme Court鈥檚 ruling and was struck by the lesser-known details.

鈥漈he interesting things to me is how many provisions are in the act that have absolutely nothing to do with the individual mandate or expansion of Medicaid, but are buried in there and will have impacts on our clients,鈥� Hagen says.

Hagen also is notifying clients about a new rule proposal issued by the Internal Revenue Service that will impact hospitals and their financial vendors, and he is tracking pending amendments to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPPA).

Hagen acknowledges that it鈥檚 sometimes difficult to keep up with the latest in this accelerated regulatory environment, and that even the agencies themselves are struggling to do the same. As one example, the U.S. Department of Labor has yet to issue guidelines on the latest changes to the Employee Retirement Income Security Act. Hagen is working with the Oregon State Bar to write a chapter on the state鈥檚 health care laws for one of its legal publications, but can鈥檛 complete it until the new HIPPA rules are issued.

鈥淲e鈥檝e had to put that on hold for the last six months. Otherwise, it鈥檚 going to be out of date the minute we issue it,鈥� he says.