Employers must distribute Medicare Part D Creditable Coverage Notices to Medicare-eligible individuals by October 15.
BAS Blog
With calendar-year plan open enrollment season approaching, employers should consider how they treat payments made for opting out of health coverage.
Q.- An employee on leave wants to cancel her health coverage. Is this a COBRA event?
Q.- An employee is sending his daughter to ballet classes after school. He wants to know if the cost of the classes can be reimbursed from his health FSA. Can they?
As we are getting into the fall months, employers with calendar year plans begin to prepare for the annual open enrollment period. Part of these preparations should include gathering the notices that are required to be distributed each year. While each employer’s specific notice distribution obligations vary depending on factors such as size, types of plans offered and funding, required notices may include the following:
The Affordable Care Act requires applicable large employers (ALEs) to offer health coverage to full time employees and their dependents. A “full-time employee” is defined as an employee who, in any month, works at least 30 hours per week. 130 hours of service in a calendar month is considered the equivalent of 30 hours per week. In fact, for both the look-back and monthly measurement methods, an employer must use 130 hours per month for determining whether an employee is full-time or not full time.
As the school year starts again, employees are faced with the challenges of balancing work and family obligations. One often stressful family obligation of working parents is the desire to attend a child’s school function during the working day.
Q.- We are preparing for open enrollment. Is an employee still permitted to waive coverage, or do all employees have to take our medical coverage under the Affordable Care Act?
The United States Senate once again failed to pass a bill that would change provisions of the Affordable Care Act. The Graham-Cassidy-Heller-Johnson bill was touted as the last best chance to revise health care reform. The Senate had until September 30, 2017 to pass legislation revision the Affordable Care Act with a simple majority vote, rather than a 2/3 vote. Knowing it didn’t have the votes to pass, Senate leadership postponed a vote on the bill.
Q.- We have a new hire who we think is going to work more than 30 hours per week but we are not certain yet. We use the monthly measurement method. Should we offer the employee health coverage?
