ACA Compliance is here per Health Insurance Exchange article
Publication Date: 10/9/2014 6:25:50 PM
The Health Insurance Exchange recently reported that tracking systems are crucial for ACA Compliance
The Oct 1 2014 article by Melissa A. Winn stated the following:
"With the Affordable Care Act’s
employer shared responsibility reporting requirements for 2015 quickly
approaching, benefit advisers should already be working with employer clients
to implement benefit administration systems to ensure compliance with the law,
industry experts say. And those advisers who haven’t had this conversation with
their clients need to do so now, they caution.
Starting in 2015, applicable large
employers will need to identify whether eligible employees have been offered
employer-sponsored health care coverage and whether that coverage meets the
standard for minimum essential coverage, among other requirements. Employers
will also be required to track employee eligibility for health care coverage,
including number of hours worked, etc.
‘When
you look at what is required, there is no way employers can track this
information manually anymore. Having a benefit administration system to help
employers do this is key,’ Jamie Hawkins, president, CEO and founder
of the consulting firm Benefit Technology Resources told attendees of EBA’s
Workplace Benefits Summit during a pre-conference workshop Monday morning.
Beverly
Beattie, CEO of the Miami, Fla.-based agency Selden Beattie Benefit Advisors,
agreed, adding, “You should be having
a serious conversation with your clients about this tracking. They have a three
month window to get this tracking in place.”
It’s
the employer’s responsibility to be generating the required forms to report to
the Internal Revenue Service compliance with the ACA, she reminded, adding that
even for those applicable employers with 50-99 employees for which the employer
mandate has been delayed until 2016, tracking and reporting of 2015 numbers has
not been precluded.
‘A
lot of employers see the year 2016 and think they have plenty of time to
implement a benefit administration system, but they do not,’ Hawkins said, adding that an efficient administration
system takes at least 3 months to properly implement.