Affordable Care Act, since its inception, has undergone so many changes that everyone has believed that it will never be stable or constant. Since changes are not always welcomed, same is the case with employers. Having put under so many legislative and federal pressures to provide affordable healthcare coverage to employees, complying with the ever-changing ACA mandates has become a worrisome task for employers. Rising costs, expanding eligibility thresholds and heavy penalties have become the major concern points that every employer needs to watch out for this year and beyond!
Threshold Has Changed! So has the Concern
With the start of this year, employers have to offer health coverage to more number of full-time employees and their family members. The rule has raised the threshold from 70% to 95% of the total full-time employees, for those who have 100+ employees. Additionally, the employers having 50 to 99 employees who were earlier given a year to comply with the mandate, will also have to meet the 95% threshold from now onwards.
Knowing your eligibility is not always easy especially if your data is spread across disparate systems. It’s very important for you to manage and audit the data on a monthly basis for ACA compliance as well as for reporting to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).
Soaring Penalties
Ignoring errors will not come economical since penalty for even a single error can cost you big:
Performing regular quality checks is the real key to save yourselves from the costly surprises. Therefore, it is high time to make your enrollment process much more efficient, offer affordable coverage to employees and eliminate incorrect or data integrity issues (if any) to further avoid any exposure of your company to fines.
Rising Concern with Increasing Healthcare Costs and Enrollments
According to a recent survey by International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans (IFEBP), around 82% of the employers feel that their healthcare benefit costs will increase due to ACA, while 57% fear managing administrative issues will be the biggest challenge. Moreover, with the rising costs, many employees are now changing their choices to affordable employer-offered plans which they didn’t opt at first, leading to higher enrollments this year. As a result, this will not only increase the administrative burden but will also make employers overwrought regarding the benefit offerings in order to retain the talent pool.
Shifting financial burden to your employees through higher premiums and adopting high-deductible can never be said as a wise move since it will downgrade your employees’ morale, and make them dissatisfied and unhappy. Moreover, it will put you in question for affordability clauses. Therefore, it is better to have a comprehensive broker in contact who will assist you choose the best plans for your employees.
The Last Important Words:
Since this is very much evident that you can’t think of stable ACA rules and regulations, therefore, it’s your responsibility to prepare your benefits strategies well in advance to avoid heavy ACA penalties and also, keeping your workforce happy and satisfied. You need to analyze your costs and risks from inside-out. By taking a help from an industry broker or incorporating a tool that will make your open enrollment efficient & also manage your benefits offerings effectively, you can fine-tune your compliance strategies.
Threshold Has Changed! So has the Concern
With the start of this year, employers have to offer health coverage to more number of full-time employees and their family members. The rule has raised the threshold from 70% to 95% of the total full-time employees, for those who have 100+ employees. Additionally, the employers having 50 to 99 employees who were earlier given a year to comply with the mandate, will also have to meet the 95% threshold from now onwards.
Knowing your eligibility is not always easy especially if your data is spread across disparate systems. It’s very important for you to manage and audit the data on a monthly basis for ACA compliance as well as for reporting to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).
Soaring Penalties
Ignoring errors will not come economical since penalty for even a single error can cost you big:
- Employer penalty for not offering any coverage has increased from $2080 per FTE last year to $2160 per FTE this year.
- Employer penalty for offering non-affordable/non-minimum value plan has risen from $3120 per FTE to $3240 per FTE in 2016.
- Employee fine for not having coverage is now increased to $695/adult or 2.5% of the total household income (upto $2085 per family).
Performing regular quality checks is the real key to save yourselves from the costly surprises. Therefore, it is high time to make your enrollment process much more efficient, offer affordable coverage to employees and eliminate incorrect or data integrity issues (if any) to further avoid any exposure of your company to fines.
Rising Concern with Increasing Healthcare Costs and Enrollments
According to a recent survey by International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans (IFEBP), around 82% of the employers feel that their healthcare benefit costs will increase due to ACA, while 57% fear managing administrative issues will be the biggest challenge. Moreover, with the rising costs, many employees are now changing their choices to affordable employer-offered plans which they didn’t opt at first, leading to higher enrollments this year. As a result, this will not only increase the administrative burden but will also make employers overwrought regarding the benefit offerings in order to retain the talent pool.
Shifting financial burden to your employees through higher premiums and adopting high-deductible can never be said as a wise move since it will downgrade your employees’ morale, and make them dissatisfied and unhappy. Moreover, it will put you in question for affordability clauses. Therefore, it is better to have a comprehensive broker in contact who will assist you choose the best plans for your employees.
The Last Important Words:
Since this is very much evident that you can’t think of stable ACA rules and regulations, therefore, it’s your responsibility to prepare your benefits strategies well in advance to avoid heavy ACA penalties and also, keeping your workforce happy and satisfied. You need to analyze your costs and risks from inside-out. By taking a help from an industry broker or incorporating a tool that will make your open enrollment efficient & also manage your benefits offerings effectively, you can fine-tune your compliance strategies.