Health Care Reform requires certain employers to automatically enroll employees in health coverage, unless those employees make an affirmative election to decline coverage. In general, employers subject to the Fair Labor Standard Act with more than 200 full-time employees (defined as employees working, on average, 30 or more hours per week) must automatically enroll new employees in their health benefits plan.
Notice of automatic enrollment must be distributed to employees at the time of hire. The Notice must provide employees the opportunity to opt out of coverage in which the employee was automatically enrolled.
This Affordable Care Act requirement was scheduled to take effect in 2014. However, the Department of Labor recently issued guidance providing that automatic enrollment would be delayed from the initial 2014 compliance date until after the Department has issued additional guidance. Until final regulations are published, employers will not be required to automatically enroll employees in health coverage.
Even with the government's delay in the required effective date of automatic enrollment, BAS is prepared to implement automatic enrollment in health plan coverage and distribute any required notifications. Employers who wish to automatically enroll employees in coverage may easily do so through MyEnroll.com. MyEnroll.com has a standard feature that allows employers to identify a default plan within each class of coverage and automatically assign the default plan to all employees newly added to MyEnroll.com. Employers who want to get a head start of the automatic enrollment requirement should contact sales@BASusa.com.
