by admin | Mar 15, 2017 | ACA, Benefit Plan Tips, Tricks and Traps, COBRA, Compliance, Medicare
Our Firm is making a big push to provide compliance assessments for our clients and using them as a marketing tool with prospects. Since the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) began its Health Benefits Security Project in October 2012, there has been increased scrutiny. While none of our clients have been audited yet, we expect it is only a matter of time and we want to make sure they are prepared.
We knew most fully insured groups did not have a Summary Plan Description (SPD) for their health and welfare plans, but we have been surprised by some of the other things that were missing. Here are the top five compliance surprises we found.
- COBRA Initial Notice. The initial notice is a core piece of compliance with the Consolidated Omnibus Budget and Reconciliation Act (COBRA) and we have been very surprised by how many clients are not distributing this notice. Our clients using a third-party administrator (TPA), or self-administering COBRA, are doing a good job of sending out the required letters after qualifying events. However, we have found that many clients are not distributing the required COBRA initial notice to new enrollees. The DOL has recently updated the COBRA model notices with expiration dates of December 31, 2019. We are trying to get our clients to update their notices and, if they haven’t consistently distributed the initial notice to all participants, to send it out to everyone now and document how it was sent and to whom.
- Prescription Drug Plan Reporting to CMS. To comply with the Medicare Prescription Drug Improvement and Modernization Act, passed in 2003, employer groups offering prescription benefits to Medicare-eligible individuals need to take two actions each year. The first is an annual report on the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) website regarding whether the prescription drug plan offered by the group is creditable or non-creditable. The second is distributing a notice annually to Medicare-eligible plan members prior to the October 15 beginning of Medicare open enrollment, disclosing whether the prescription coverage is creditable or non-creditable. We have found that the vast majority (but not 100 percent) of our clients are complying with the second requirement by annually distributing notices to employees. Many clients are not complying with the first requirement and do not go to the CMS website annually to update their information. The annual notice on the CMS website must be made within:
- 60 days after the beginning of the plan year,
- 30 days after the termination of the prescription drug plan, or
- 30 days after any change in the creditability status of the prescription drug plan.
- ACA Notice of Exchange Rights. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) required that, starting in September 2013, all employers subject to the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) distribute written notices to all employees regarding the state exchanges, eligibility for coverage through the employer, and whether the coverage was qualifying coverage. This notice was to be given to all employees at that time and to all new hires within 14 days of their date of hire. We have found many groups have not included this notice in the information they routinely give to new hires. The DOL has acknowledged that there are no penalties for not distributing the notice, but since it is so easy to comply, why take the chance in case of an audit?
- USERRA Notices. The Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA) protects the job rights of individuals who voluntarily or involuntarily leave employment for military service or service in the National Disaster Medical System. USERRA also prohibits employers from discriminating against past and present members of the uniformed services. Employers are required to provide a notice of the rights, benefits and obligations under USERRA. Many employers meet the obligation by posting the DOL’s “Your Rights Under USERRA” poster, or including text in their employee handbook. However, even though USERRA has been around since 1994, we are finding many employers are not providing this information.
- Section 79. Internal Revenue Code Section 79 provides regulations for the taxation of employer-provided life insurance. This code has been around since 1964, and while there have been some changes, the basics have been in place for many years. Despite the length of time it has been in place, we have found a number of groups that are not calculating the imputed income. In essence, if an employer provides more than $50,000 in life insurance, then the employee should be paying tax on the excess coverage based on the IRS’s age rated table 2-2. With many employers outsourcing their payroll or using software programs for payroll, calculating the imputed income usually only takes a couple of mouse clicks. However, we have been surprised by how many employers are not complying with this part of the Internal Revenue Code, and are therefore putting their employees’ beneficiaries at risk.
There have been other surprises through this process, but these are a few of the more striking examples. The feedback we received from our compliance assessments has been overwhelmingly positive. Groups don’t always like to change their processes, but they do appreciate knowing what needs to be done.
By Bob Bentley, Originally Published By United Benefit Advisors
by admin | Mar 9, 2017 | ACA, COBRA, Compliance, Human Resources, IRS
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) recently updated its longstanding Questions and Answers about Information Reporting by Employers on Form 1094-C and Form 1095-C that provides information on:
Generally, the Q&A describes when and how an employer reports its offers of coverage and describes the codes that employers should use when completing Form 1094-C and Form 1095-C for calendar year 2016 that are to be filed in 2017. The Q&A should be used in conjunction with the Instructions for Forms 1094-C and 1095-C which provide detailed information about completing the forms.
The updated Q&A provides information on COBRA reporting that had been left pending in earlier versions of the Q&A for the past year. UBA’s ACA Advisor “IRS Q&A About Employer Information Reporting on Form 1094-C and Form 1095-C” reviews the new information and explains other reporting obligations covered under the Q&A.
Reporting Offers of COBRA Continuation Coverage
An offer of COBRA continuation coverage that is made to a former employee due to termination of employment is not reported as an offer of coverage in Part II of Form 1095-C.
If the applicable large employer is required to complete a Form 1095-C for the former employee (because, for example, the individual was a full-time employee for one or more months of the year before terminating employment), the employer should use code 1H, No offer of coverage, on line 14 for any month that the former employee was offered COBRA continuation coverage. For those same months, the employer should use code 2A, Employee not employed during the month, on line 16 for each month in which the individual is not an employee (regardless of whether the former employee enrolled in the COBRA continuation coverage).
An employer that provides COBRA continuation coverage through a self-funded health plan generally must report that coverage for any former employee or family member who enrolls in that COBRA continuation coverage in Part III of the Form 1095-C. Also, the employer may report the coverage on Form 1095-B for any individual who was not an employee during the year and who separately elected the COBRA continuation coverage.
By Danielle Capilla, Originally Published United Benefit Advisors
by admin | Mar 7, 2017 | Benefit Plan Tips, Tricks and Traps, Human Resources
Last fall I had the pleasure of hosting a UBA WisdomWorkplace webinar called “Success in Voluntary through Strategic Benefits Communication.” I discussed recent Sun Life survey data regarding employee engagement and understanding of the value of voluntary benefits.
In the world of voluntary insurance carriers, success in voluntary benefits can be measured in various ways. A key metric is employee participation. For carriers, this is important because the greater the employee participation in a voluntary product, the better the spread of risk, which leads to appropriate margins and sustainable pricing.
But in the world of HR, this has not been a key metric. While good participation can reflect employee acceptance (and low participation might raise the question about whether the product is worth the time it takes to administer payroll deductions and facilitate billing), employee engagement has become more important.
This concept of knowing what you’re participating in makes me think about a good friend of mine who, a few years ago, reached out to me in a panic. He works for a large corporation with employees spread across the country. His employer was dropping all medical plan PPO options for the coming year and switching to a high- and higher-deductible option. He was sent an e-mail that provided few details but explained the action was due to high health care costs. There was no indication that more information was forthcoming, and the communication as a whole was insufficient because he couldn’t find answers to the questions he needed, the most important being, “what does this mean to me and my family?” I explained recent trends and how a high-deductible health plan (HDHP) with a health savings account (HSA) could be advantageous to him, but as we all know, not everyone is knowledgeable about their benefits or has friends in the business to explain their options.
When employees aren’t engaged in good benefits decision making, they can misunderstand or underuse their plans. Our recent survey showed that while employees are becoming more aware of changes in their medical plans, 54 percent still don’t know their out-of-pocket maximum, and 33 percent don’t know their deductible.
Employees are, however, concerned about their financial risks, and most do not have emergency savings or a cash flow to handle unexpected medical expenses. Moreover, research from the Federal Reserve shows that some people actually choose to forgo needed medical care simply because they cannot afford it.1
While these data point out employee challenges, our research does provide some encouraging feedback that shows how we might be able to help employees become knowledgeable about their benefits choices.
For example, though employees understand the benefits gap, 62 percent of those surveyed say they need additional coverage. We also learned that 70 percent were not familiar with the term “voluntary benefits,” but once they understood what voluntary products are, 63 percent agreed that these benefits are helpful in filling the gaps in health care coverage, even if they have to pay for these benefits themselves.
The real kicker is that 87 percent say more customized benefits choices that fit their specific lifestyles would help them make the right health plan choices.
This is where strategic benefits communication can play a vital role. In addition to ensuring that employees really understand the value of all of their benefits, including true total compensation, a well-planned communication effort engages employees by empowering them with information so they are confident in their open enrollment decisions.
How will you know whether you have been a successful communicator? In subsequent posts, we will talk about gathering employee feedback.
Over the next few months, this blog series will examine the ways HR benefits professionals can achieve success—not just in offering voluntary products to employees, but more important, in their overall benefits communications.
By Kevin D. Seeker
Originally published by www.ubabenefits.com
by admin | Mar 2, 2017 | ACA, Group Benefit Plans, Human Resources
Last fall, President Barack Obama signed the Protecting Affordable Coverage for Employees Act (PACE), which preserved the historical definition of small employer to mean an employer that employs 1 to 50 employees. Prior to this newly signed legislation, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) was set to expand the definition of a small employer to include companies with 51 to 100 employees (mid-size segment) beginning January 1, 2016.
If not for PACE, the mid-size segment would have become subject to the ACA provisions that impact small employers. Included in these provisions is a mandate that requires coverage for essential health benefits (not to be confused with minimum essential coverage, which the ACA requires of applicable large employers) and a requirement that small group plans provide coverage levels that equate to specific actuarial values. The original intent of expanding the definition of small group plans was to lower premium costs and to increase mandated benefits to a larger portion of the population.
The lower cost theory was based on the premise that broadening the risk pool of covered individuals within the small group market would spread the costs over a larger population, thereby reducing premiums to all. However, after further scrutiny and comments, there was concern that the expanded definition would actually increase premium costs to the mid-size segment because they would now be subject to community rating insurance standards. This shift to small group plans might also encourage mid-size groups to leave the fully insured market by self-insuring – a move that could actually negate the intended benefits of the expanded definition.
Another issue with the ACA’s expanded definition of small group plans was that it would have resulted in a double standard for the mid-size segment. Not only would they be subject to the small group coverage requirements, but they would also be subject to the large employer mandate because they would meet the ACA’s definition of an applicable large employer.
Note: Although this bill preserves the traditional definition of a small employer, it does allow states to expand the definition to include organizations with 51 to 100 employees, if so desired.
By Vicki Randall, Originally Published By United Benefit Advisors
by admin | Feb 28, 2017 | Benefit Management, Employee Benefits, Health Plan Benchmarking, Human Resources
Employer-sponsored health insurance is greatly affected by geographic region, industry, and employer size. While some cost trends have been fairly consistent since the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) was put in place, UBA finds several surprises in its latest Health Plan Survey. Based on responses from more than 11,000 employers, UBA recently announced the top five best and worst states for group health care monthly premiums.
The top five best (least expensive) states are:
1) Hawaii
2) Idaho
3) Utah
4) Arkansas
5) Mississippi
Hawaii, a perennial low-cost leader, actually experienced a nearly seven percent decrease in its single coverage in 2016. New Mexico, a state that was a low-cost winner in 2015, saw a 22 percent increase in monthly premiums for singles and nearly a 30 percent increase in monthly family premiums, dropping it from the “best” list.
The top five worst (most expensive) states are:
1) Alaska
2) Wyoming
3) New York
4) Vermont
5) New Jersey
The UBA Health Plan Survey also enables state ranking based on the average annual cost per employee. The average annual cost per employee looks at all tiers of a plan and places an average cost on that plan based on a weighted average metric. While the resulting rankings are slightly different, they also show some interesting findings.
The 2016 average annual health plan cost per employee for all plan types is $9,727, which is a slight decrease form the average cost of $9,736 in 2015. When you start to look at the average annual cost by region and by state, there is not much change among the top from last year. The Northeast region continues to have the highest average annual cost even with the continued shift to consumer-driven health plans (CDHP). In 2016, enrollment in CDHPs in the Northeast was 34.9 percent, surpassing those enrolled in preferred provider organization (PPO) plans at 33 percent. Even with the continued shift to CDHPs, the average annual costs were $12,202 for New York, which remained the second-highest cost state, followed by $12,064 for New Jersey, and rounding out the top five, Massachusetts and Vermont flip-flopped from 2015 with Massachusetts at $11,956 and Vermont at $11,762.
As was the case in 2015, Alaska continues to lead all states in average health plan costs, topping New York by more than $1,000 per employee, with an average cost of $13,251. While year-over-year the average cost for Alaska only increased 3.35 percent, the gap increased to 36.2 percent above the national average of $9,727.
Keeping close to the national average increase, the top five states all saw a year-over-year increase of less than 4.5 percent. Unfortunately, even at a modest increase, the one thing that the top five have in common is that they all are more than 20 percent above the national average for health plan costs per employee.
By Matt Weimer, Originally Published By United Benefit Advisors
