Feds pump out even more Obamacare instructions
If you believe Republicans on Capitol Hill, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) isn’t long for this world. Still, the Obama administration continues to clarify how businesses are supposed to comply with the law’s many provisions.
The Department of Labor (DOL), Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) just put their heads together for the 35th time to address questions surrounding Obamacare reforms.
The result? FAQs About Affordable Care Act Implementation Part 35.
Here’s some of the most useful info to come out of this latest FAQ:
Qualified small employer HRA
As HR Morning reported previously, the 21st Century Cures Act, among other things, allows certain small employers to offer a general purpose stand-alone health reimbursement arrangement (HRA) without violating the ACA. It is also referred to as “qualified small employer health reimbursement arrangement” — or QSEHRA.
The FAQ touches on how this new law gibes with the ACA and clarified that in order to be a QSEHRA, the structure of the plan must:
- be funded entirely by an eligible employer — one with fewer than 50 full-time equivalent employees in the prior year and that doesn’t offer a group health plan to any of its employees
- provide for payment to, or reimbursement of, an eligible employee for medical care under Code section 213(d)
- not reimburse more than $4,950 for eligible expenses for individuals or $10,000 for families, and
- be provided to all eligible employees of the employer offering the HRA.
One thing the 21st Century Cares Act (and the feds’ FAQ) doesn’t address: Whether the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) applies to a QSEHRA.
Special Enrollment & HIPAA
The FAQ also addressed special enrollment for group health plans under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). Because HIPAA generally allows current employees and dependents to enroll in a company’s group health plan if the employees/dependents lose their previous coverage, they must be offered the same special enrollment option if they lose individual market coverage (i.e., health coverage they obtained through the individual Obamacare marketplace — or “exchanges”).
This could happen to individual market participants if an insurer that was covering an employee/dependent decides to stop offering that individual market coverage. As we saw last year, several major insurers have taken that step.
One exception to this special enrollment: If the loss of coverage is due to a failure to pay premiums in a timely manner — or “for cause.”
Updated women’s preventive services
As you know, under the ACA, non-grandfathered health plans are required to provide recommended preventives services for women without any cost-sharing.
Those services are listed in the Health Resources and Services Administration’s (HRSA) guidelines, and the guidelines were just updated on December 20, 2016. The updated guidelines bolster many of the existing covered preventive care services for women in the areas of:
- breast cancer
- cervical cancer
- gestational diabetes
- HIV, and
- domestic violence.
The services in the updated guidelines must be covered — without cost-sharing — for plan years beginning on or after December 20, 2017 (Jan. 1, 2018 for calendar year plans). Until then, plans can keep using the previous HRSA guidelines.
Info: A tip of the hat goes to our sister website HR Benefits Alert, which published a previous version of this story.
