Human Capital Management Blog

Who doesn’t want to reduce stress on their employees? Apparently, open enrollments aren't helping. A recent study conducted by Harris Pole of over 2100 employees revealed that roughly 50% of employees find the open enrollment process to be “Always Stressful” and over 40% described selecting health benefits as “Very Confusing.” Makes sense—you’ve got HMOs, PPOs, EPOs, HSAs, FSA, HRAs, HDHPs…and suddenly I’m thinking about Robin Williams in Good Morning Vietnam. When employees are looking at selecting a High Deductible Health Plan (HDHP) for the first time, here are a few things worth sharing.

Assuming the market conditions are right, the internal requirements for business growth are unchanging—scalability of resources, profitability for capital reinvestment, and the right team makeup and vision to propel you to the next level. That being said, while the recipe for growth hasn’t changed, the ingredients are becoming scarcer. In today’s workplace, mid-market employers encounter ever-increasing regulatory burdens, high talent-acquisition costs, and bolting healthcare prices. It’s difficult to recruit top-talent and be scalable when health coverage is more expensive to offer and regulatory burdens tie up HR and executive staff with transactional work. In other words, rising healthcare costs and regulatory requirements are eroding effective staff utilization, killing scalability and recruitment, and depleting profitability for capital reinvestment. When growth happens, at best, it’s at a slow pace. What’s the solution?

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) and its Employer Shared Responsibility Mandate have placed a costly burden on employers who traditionally did not extend employer sponsored health coverage to variable hour employees. The ACA now requires employers to offer health coverage to those employees that work more than 30 hours per week (130 hours per month over a 12 month measurement period), or risk paying a penalty. In an effort to avoid the cost of penalties and additional health insurance expenses, a number of employers looked to ways of reducing their full-time employee population, or minimize the number of employees to whom they would be required to offer coverage or risk paying a penalty. Makes sense. Then came the lawsuit Marin v. Dave & Buster’s Inc.

As Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) are growing in popularity, employers having increasing questions on the difference between Health Reimbursement Accounts (HRAs), FLEX Spending Accounts (FSAs) and HSAs. While there are overlapping regulations in each of these benefits, there are also important distinguishing factors. This blog will focus on the question: “For an HRA vs. HSA vs. FSA, must a qualified expense be incurred during the same plan year that the contribution is made?” Let’s focus on how each of these benefits responds.

We don’t typically use our blog to talk about ourselves, but we felt this campaign would be worth promoting to our readership. So please forgive the plug—we won’t make a habit out of it!

By now most employers and HR professionals are well aware of the data required for Affordable Care Act testing and reporting. The measurement periods continue to be a sticking point for people, particularly when they are collecting data during the process for an ACA software implementation.

We have some time between now and the effective date of NY Paid Family Leave Act (PFLA) in January of 2018. Indeed a lot can happen in 18 months that may impact our plans for administering NY Paid Family Leave, but probably not enough to justify postponing our preparation strategy for administering this new benefit. In this blog I'll be covering some key considerations when building your process for administering Paid Family Leave. Of note, PFLA shares some similarities with FMLA, but is by no means a carbon copy.

In June of 2016, the IRS began delivering their backlog of subsidy notices to employers. The notices informed Applicable Large Employers (ALEs) when an employee who might have been eligible for employer-sponsored health coverage enrolled in health coverage through a state or federal marketplace AND received an Advanced Premium Tax Credit (APTC) and Cost-Sharing Reduction (CSR). Notices were automatic computerized mailings triggered by the employee’s enrollment. Immediately, the floodgates of questions opened: “What should I do if I receive an ACA subsidy notice?” “Is there a penalty associated with an employee ACA subsidy notice?” “How do I appeal an employee ACA subsidy notification?” All great questions, but let’s start with a little note of reassurance. Receiving an Affordable Care Act Subsidy Notice does not automatically mean that you are subject to an ACA penalty. That being said, don’t just toss them into the junk-mail box—there are some decisions to make, and they may involve a lawyer. Take the following into consideration in determining the appropriate response to an ACA subsidy notification.