Congratulations to those of you who took an early renewal on your Group Health Plan in order to delay some of the ObamaCare mandates and to protect yourself from unnecessary paperwork…
Although there are those who wish that ObamaCare would be repealed the process is running on a fast pace and those wishes will probably not be granted except for some modification of the rules and regulations. It is the rules and regulations that make this a very difficult transition for all of us who are business owners. The penalties imposed by the regulators are quite drastic and the regulator expectation so high that make human failure very very costly.
Please… Please… properly notify your employees of their eligibility for benefits on a timely basis and for those who do not enroll or provide any response to your offer, you must send them a letter indicating that their time for enrollment will expire and that their next opportunity will be the company “Open Enrollment Period” which will be noticed in the future.
When you have an employee who has benefits and is departing your company you must notify the Insurance Carrier and ask that Carrier to provide that employee with the COBRA Package. Depending on the size of your company and the time periods of the employees potential layoff with no future employer in mind, California and/or Federal COBRA rules may come into play. Always notify your employee even though you may have requested your Insurance Carrier to provide such notice of this event and with contact numbers for the various Insurance Carriers from which they may wish to continue coverage in order to protect minimize your liability. Remember the laws are tilted in favor of the employee and you should hold their hand. Also, generally your Insurance Carrier is not the COBRA Administrator. It is your and your third party administrator’sfiduciary obligation to see that the process is properly administered. This is what we do at Bone Robertson& McBride Inc.
With good health to you,
Don Bone, President