The 2010 health care reform law requires health plans to provide women’s preventative care and services without cost sharing. Regulations issued August 1, 2011 included all FDA-approved contraception for women in the definition of women’s preventive care and services. That includes abortion and abortifacient drugs (like the so-called “morning-after” pill). The regulations were effective for the first plan year beginning on or after August 1, 2012. The government released proposed regulations on January 30, 2013, that would amend those regulations.
On January 24, 2013, the DOL published Part XI of the FAQs about Affordable Care Act (ACA) Implementation. This delayed the March 1, 2013 deadline for employers to send an Exchange Notice.
The DOL provided two reasons for delaying the Exchange Notice.
(1) The notice will be coordinated with educational efforts by the IRS and HHS on the subject of minimum value
(2) A later deadline will ensure that individuals receive a notice with meaningful information
The new deadline will be in the late summary or early fall of 2013. Open enrollment for the Exchange- now known as the Health Insurance Marketplace- begins on October 1, 2013.
The DOL also addressed several pending issues for Health Reimbursement Arrangements (HRAs) related to when they are considered to be integrated with other coverage. Further guidance will be forthcoming.
The DOL had the following comments on HRAs:
Please feel free to contact our office with any questions.
On January 25, 2013, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit issued a long-awaited ruling refusing to enforce the National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB) bargaining order against a petitioning employer. The basis for the court’s decision was the improper appointment of three members of the NLRB (Noel Canning v. NLRB).
The decision was unique in that it was ultimately decided on purely constitutional grounds, holding that President Obama’s attempted recess appointments of three Board Members in January 2012 were constitutionally impermissible.
What does this mean for the NLRB and for cases pending before it? Although the Board Chairman issued a terse press release on late on January 25th, the NLRB should be very concerned about its short term prospects.
Our payroll stuffer this month will focus on the important topic of Blood Donation. It covers topics imporant to your employees such as:
For the full version of this document, please contact luann@visitaag.com.
Thank you.
The topic for this month focuses on Health Care Reform Updates. It covers regulations including the 2014 Play or Pay penalty as well as the new Summary of Benefits & Coverage (SBC) requirements.
Please contact us directly for more information on this topic.
All 2012 W2’s that will be distributed in January 2013 are required to report the aggregate cost of insurance coverage. Currently, if you filed less than 250 W2’s in 2011 you are exempt from this W2 reporting requirement this year.
The value of health care coverage will be reported in Box 12 of the W2 with code DD to identify the amount. You are required to report the total cost of both employer and employee contributions for major medical and any other nontaxable “group health plan” coverage for which COBRA is offered, except if dental or vision coverage is offered on a stand alone basis. A copy of the full chart from the IRS outlining the types of coverage that employers must report on the W2 can be accessed here.
Please contact our office with any questions.
All OSHA 3000A logs must be posted by February 1st in a visible location for employees to read. The logs need to remain posted through April 30th.
Please note the 300 logs must be completed for your records only as it contains employee details. The 300A log is a summary of all workplace injuries and does not contain employee specific details. It is the only log that should be posted for employee viewing.
If you need a copy of either the OSHA 300 or 300A log, please contact our office.
With all of your generosity, we were able to exceed our goal of adopting 20 kids this year.
We fulfilled the wishes of over 30 children in foster care with Community Partnership for Children. In addition, we provided monetary donations totaling $700.00 to help even more children.
We would like to send a BIG THANK YOU to the following individuals/companies who helped us surpass our goal this year:
The children and AAG appreciate all of your support this holiday season!
~The AAG team
Our payroll stuffer this month will focus on the important topic of Surviving the Holidays. It covers topics imporant to your employees such as:
For the full version of this document, please contact luann@visitaag.com.
Thank you.
The new healthcare reform law includes a number of new taxes and fees which are rarely mentioned by the law’s supporters. On December 5, the IRS announced final regulations governing new fees on health insurers and employer sponsors of self-insured health plans, designed to fund the “Patient Centered Outcomes Research Trust”. This Trust finances an “Institute” tasked with “advancing the quality and relevance of evidence medicine through the synthesis and dissemination of comparative clinical effectiveness research findings”.
Say what??
Since insurers must pay the fee with respect to insured plans, the following discussion will center on obligations of self-funded plan sponsors. For calendar year plans, the first payment is due July 31, 2013. Employers sponsoring self-insured plans need to be aware of these issues now since 2012 plan data will be necessary to calculate the fee owing in 2013.
The regulations describe how the new fee is calculated and paid by sponsors of self-insured plans for plan years ending on or after Oct 1, 2012 and before Oct 1, 2019, when the fee is scheduled to expire. The fee is based on the number of lives covered by the plan, which means the sponsor pays on the basis of participants (including COBRA recipients), as well as covered spouses, dependents and other beneficiaries.
Since the fee affects all plans with plan years ending on and after Oct 1, 2012, it is required for most plans this year, including all calendar year plans. For plan years ending before Oct 1, 2013 (for most plans, the current plan year), the fee is $1 times the average number of lives covered by the plan.
For plan years ending on and after Oct 13, 2013, the fee is $2 per average number of lives, and for years ending after Oct 13, 2014, the fee will increase based on the projected per capita amount of national health expenditures. Fees are due no later than July 31 of the year following the last day of the plan year. For calendar year plans, that means the first fee is due July 31, 2013.
For more detailed information, please review the full alert on Fisher & Phillips LLP website.