DP specializes in combining payroll with Human Resources, which gives us a distinct advantage when it comes to helping you navigate your new obligations as an employer.
To help meet the growing need for assistance in Health Care Reform compliance, we have created a comprehensive ACA Solution Package that seamlessly streamlines your payroll service to include HR, Time and Attendance Management, and Benefits Administration. All of the information you need to comply with the new regulations of the ACA ends up right at your fingertips!
The ACA Solution Package includes the following services and features that can help you meet the ACA requirements:
BENEFIT PLAN ADMINISTRATION For the Health Care Reform
•Efficient methods for communicating the Uniform Summary of Benefits and Coverage
•FSA Limits
•Employee Notice of Exchange
•Waiting Period Identifiers
•Medical Loss Ratio (MLR)
ROBUST ELIGIBILITY CRITERIA
•Highly Compensated Individual Identifier
DEPENDENT & BENEFICIARY TRACKING
•Extension of Child Coverage to age 26
CARRIER CONNECTION
•Standards of Enrollment resources delivered electronically including:
Eligibility Transactions Enrollment Transactions Premium Payments
•DP COBRA Services
•DP FSA Service
INVOICE AUDITING & REPORTING
•Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Fee Report
•Employer Shared Responsibility
PAYROLL, TAXATION, AND REPORTING
•Medicare Tax on Wages and Unearned Income
•Wage tracking for coverage affordability
•W-2 Reporting of Healthcare Insurance Costs
TIME AND LABOR MANAGEMENT
•Track Hours of Service Including Projected Scheduled Hours
•View and Adjust Work Schedules
•Ability to Set Threshold Notifications for Total Hours of Service
EMPLOYEE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
•Summary of Benefits
•Employee Notice of Exchange
Dependent Coverage
The ACA requires employers to expand coverage for qualifying dependent children up to age 26.
HOW DP CAN HELP
•Configures the ACA Solution platform to apply age rules where applicable
•Provides open enrollment and life event enrollment tools to allow dependent children up to age 26 access to health and welfare plans
•Provides benefit plan setup template to track dependent age requirements
HOW YOUR BUSINESS BENEFITS
•Reduces costs associated with ineligible plan participants
•Reduces premium overpayments
•Helps ensure compliance with coverage regulations
Medical Loss Ratio (MLR) Rebates
Employers are required to issue rebates to employees and former employees who were plan participants that plan year or to spend the rebate on employee health care and quality improvement expenses.
HOW DP CAN HELP
•Provides the ability to set up the appropriate employee credit in order to provide rebate distribution to eligible employees as a percentage of plan contribution
HOW YOUR BUSINESS BENEFITS
•Helps optimize rebate dollars most effectively to reduce total cost of healthcare
Summary of Benefits and Coverage (SBC)
Insurers and self-insured group health plans must provide SBCs for annual enrollments beginning on or after 9/23/12 as well as for other enrollments and upon request for plan years beginning on or after 9/23/12.
HOW DP CAN HELP
•DP endorses electronic delivery of SBC and returns acknowledgement from employees
•Clients have to option to print hard copies
HOW YOUR BUSINESS BENEFITS
•Assists in ensuring compliance with ACA SBC requirements
•Reduces administrative obligation to correspond with employees about SBCs
•Employees have direct access to coverage information
JANUARY 1, 2013
Medicare Tax on Wages and Unearned Income
Employers are required to withhold .9% on Medicare taxable wages in excess of $200,000 annually for all
U.S. workers regardless of marital status or aggregate/outside income.
HOW DP CAN HELP
•DP allows practitioners to create a report which manages a payroll review to find deductions for qualifying, high-income employees meeting tax criteria
•DP’s payroll software automatically deducts the extra .9% once an employee reaches $200k in taxable wages
HOW YOUR BUSINESS BENEFITS
•Increases employee satisfaction with highly compensated/executive associates on planning their taxes
JANUARY 1, 2013
Flexible Spending Account (FSA) Annual Limit
A $2,500 limit pertains to employee healthcare FSA contributions for plan years beginning on or after 1/1/2013.
HOW DP CAN HELP
•Streamlines all DP healthcare spending accounts for 2013 open enrollments such as HRA, FSA, HSA, which including mobile and single debit card access
HOW YOUR BUSINESS BENEFITS
•Ensures FSA requirements are met
•Enhances employee engagement through communication improvements
•Merges multiple spending account vendors, while reducing benefits costs from consumer-driven or high-deductible plans
•Communicates FSA limits to
employees to remove administrative obligation
Form W-2 Reporting
Employers with 250 or more W-2s in the 2011 calendar year are required to include the value of employee’s group health care on Form W-2 at the start of the 2012 tax year. Employers must ensure payroll system is able to track and include this figure on W-2s to be printed in January. Both employee and employer total costs must be included in one entry.
HOW DP CAN HELP
•DP allows practitioners the power to select which benefit plans to include in the Group Health Insurance Costs calculated in the W-2
•Group Health Insurance Costs reporting allows practitioners the ability to create and check costs related to each employee by benefit plan
HOW YOUR BUSINESS BENEFITS
•Ensures compliance with W-2 requirements
•Reduces administrative payroll obligations to year-end processing
•Minimizes chance of penalties for incorrect W-2s. ($50 per incorrect W-2)
MARCH 1, 2013 (Postponed) Employee Notice of Exchange
Employers must distribute a notice describing availability of exchange coverage to all current employees as well as issuing a notice upon hire to employees hired after 3/1/2013 (postponed).1
HOW DP CAN HELP
•DP endorses electronically delivery of Notice of Exchange and returns acknowledgement from employees
•Client has the option to print hard copies
HOW YOUR BUSINESS BENEFITS
•Ensures compliance with exchange notice requirements
•Helps reduce administrative burden
of communicating exchange option to employees
•Gives employees access to Employee & HR Service Center
1 On January 24, 2013, the Department of Labor (DOL) announced that the notice requirement will not take effect on March 1, 2013. The DOL expects that the timing for distribution of notices will be the late summer or fall of 2013, which will coordinate with the open enrollment period for Exchanges.
2013/2014 (Pending guidance may impact effective date and type of services)
Automatic Enrollment and Nondiscrimination Rule
Employers with 200 or more full-time employees are required to immediately enroll new employees in their group health plan. Insured employer group heath plans are not allowed to discriminate in favor of highly compensated employees.
HOW DP CAN HELP
•Automatically enroll new hires into employer group health plans
•Reports exceptions on enrolled employee population
HOW YOUR BUSINESS BENEFITS
•Aids compliance with automatic enrollment and nondiscrimination requirements
Annual Dollar Limits and Waiting Periods/Pre-Existing Condition Exclusions
For plan years beginning on or after 1/1/2014, employer group health plans may not impose annual dollar limits on essential health benefits, waiting periods of longer than 90 days, or pre-existing condition exclusions.
HOW DP CAN HELP
•DP provides new hire reports for up to 90 days to validate employment status (part/full-time, on leave of absence)
•Changes triggers to guarantee correct benefits enrollment
HOW YOUR BUSINESS BENEFITS
•Reduces extensive costs based on employment status
• Ensures agreement with FLSA rules
Wellness Incentives
For plans starting 1/1/2014, permitted wellness incentives from 20% to 30% of cost of coverage.
HOW DP CAN HELP
•Access to a wellness portal and biometric screening
HOW YOUR BUSINESS BENEFITS
•Allows you to have access to business case templates for potential investment as well as wellness best practices
•Reduces employer cost of healthcare
•Keeps employees engaged by having greater accountability for healthcare costs
1/1/2014
Employer Shared Responsibility
Employers with 50 or more FTE equivalents must present affordable, minimum essential coverage option or be subject to tax penalties.
Options include:
Offering traditional group health plan coverage for all employees with minimum essential coverage (60%+ of actuarial value), while employee costs are capped (9.5 % of household income)
Offering no medical coverage
Offering medical coverage for some but not all employees
HOW DP CAN HELP
•Offers tools to help with annual reconciliation of the penalty bill against benefits and W-2 data, which allows clients to initiate W-2 corrections and/or penalty appeals process
•Keeps track of employees who chose to waive benefit coverage and the reason coverage was waived
HOW YOUR BUSINESS BENEFITS
•Minimizes risks associated with cost of benefits and employee burden levels
•Ensures compliance independent of company size
•Assists in reducing practitioners’ obligations to determining wage levels
Regardless of what stage your company is in, every business will require some level of help to get through ACA. DP is the one partner who can support your needs at any level. Don’t waste your resources trying to figure it out – contact DP today!