For the wellness industry’s “pry, poke and prod” vendors — Interactive Health, Wellsteps, Bravo, Wellness Corporate Solutions etc. — the Grinch has got nothing on the EEOC. For the second year in a row, the EEOC is spoiling their Christmas.

Today’s Federal Register contains the EEOC’s removal of the rules allowing forced “voluntary” clinical exams from the relevant law.

But wait…there’s more

And it looks like the EEOC might also miss their latest self-imposed deadline for proposing new rules, which is June 2019. (The interval from proposing rules to implementing them is measured in months, if not years.) The reason for this? The EEOC still hasn’t filled its open positions and may not have a quorum for rule-making in time to do this. Not to mention they have other fish to fry once they do.

Today, President Trump’s nominee, who would have created the quota, pulled his name from consideration. That makes the likelihood of a quorum for rule-making all the more remote.

So, as Bravo aptly put it in their letter begging Senators to allow them to continue to harass employees with forced screenings, any employer not using Quizzify’s elegantly designed indemnification or other solution faces the “Wild West of litigation” in 2019. And to these vendors I say: Happy Festivus.