The Price is Right recently began its 42nd season of daytime television entertainment. Its decades-long run is a testament to what viewers crave in their mid-morning television – an audience full of energy and, of course, the chance to win a shiny new car. The eternal skeptics (including yours truly) who watch the show almost ...
The IRS recent issuance of Notice 2014-54 has gained accolades from various investment advisors as an easy way to convert after-tax salary contributions to a qualified plan to Roth amounts once they become distributable. Claims that this guidance provides an opportunity for a “tax free asset growth strategy” or a ...
Health care plan sponsors, we officially provide you our two weeks’ notice…of the due date for your Annual Medicare Part D Creditable Coverage Notification. By October 15 of each year (two weeks from today), employers whose health plans include prescription drug coverage must notify Medicare-eligible employees whether ...
Since the implementation of Health Care Reform, certain employees and employers have been facing the problem of election lock in their cafeteria plans. In an employer-sponsored non-calendar year health plan, an employee’s election is irrevocable during the plan year if the premiums are paid through a cafeteria plan ...
The new ACA reporting requirements don’t go into effect until the 2015 plan year. And the first reports are not due to employees until early 2016. Just because these rules were delayed a year doesn’t mean employers have no action to take this year. Besides tracking employees hours this year for your look-back period ...
The deadline for having revised business associate agreements (BAAs) in place is September 22nd, which is only one week away. If you have sent BAAs out to your business associates and haven’t received them back, you should follow-up this week to ensure the agreements are executed by the deadline. If a business associate ...
Many employers are nearing the end of their first look-back measurement period for purposes of determining full-time employment status for health plan coverage. Before you finalize your counts on who is a full-time employee, it is important to make sure that you have taken all hours into account. The pay or play rules require that ...
In August, the EEOC effectively ended its silence regarding wellness programs when it filed suit against Wisconsin-based Orion Energy Systems, Inc. According to the EEOC’s complaint, employees who participated in Orion’s program had to undergo a health risk assessment, which included having blood work done and ...
I receive this question a lot from clients. Under the ACA, all large employers are required to offer coverage to substantially all of their full-time employees or pay a penalty if any employee goes to the exchange and receives federal assistance. A large employer who avoids the first penalty may still owe a pay or play penalty ...
Parkview Health Systems, Inc. recently reached an agreement with HHS to pay $800,000 for potential HIPAA privacy violations. Parkview had left 71 cardboard boxes of medical records unattended on the driveway of a retiring physician. As we wrote last month, improper disposal of PHI represents approximately 5% of all reported ...