Compliance

2021 ABD EB Compliance Guides

Enjoy these compliance guides covering common employee benefits issues and strategies for employers!

  • A full overview of everything HDHP/HSA

  • HSA eligibility, contributions, distributions, and all the tricky issues that always arise

  • Includes the new CARES Act HSA improvements

  • Covers the ACA employer mandate basics for ALEs to avoid potential penalties

  • Who qualifies as a full-time employee under the mandate and why it matters

  • Overview of the ACA reporting requirements employers

  • A full summary of the COBRA basics from qualifying events, to elections and payment, to coverage options

  • Deep dive on persistent issues such as COBRA subsidies, M&A, Medicare, and domestic partners

  • Includes an overview of the “Joint Notice” extensions during the Outbreak Period

  • The health plan 401(k) has officially arrived as the true defined contribution alternative

  • A forward-looking review of where ICHRAs are headed and likely changes to the industry that will result

  • Practical guidance addressing the compliance and administrative challenges that still present some concerns

  • The rules that apply to maintaining health coverage during FMLA and other state-protected leaves

  • How employers can and often do address the desire to continue active coverage during a non-protected leave

  • Reminders of the tricky ACA employer mandate issues that commonly arise in the leave context

  • Why Section 125 matters as a crucial safe harbor from the doctrine of constructive receipt

  • The challenging rules governing how employees can make and change elections under a cafeteria plan

  • The use-it-or-lose-it rule and its exceptions, plus strategies to address the dreaded 55% average benefits test

  • Covering the top five issues for health and welfare plans that typically arise in the M&A context

  • Employer decisions and strategies with whether to keep plans separate or combine, including an overview of MEWA considerations

  • Discussion of ACA employer mandate, ACA reporting, COBRA, and health FSA approaches to complete the transition after the deal

  • A one-hour recorded HIPAA training session with sign-in sheet to cover the required training for employers with self-insured health plans

  • Tackles both HIPAA portability and privacy issues affecting employers from a compliance and practical perspective

  • Full overview of the privacy and security issues facing employers, plus a summary checklist to point employers in the right direction moving forward

  • Answering common questions on the relationship between group health plans and Medicare that arise as more employees reach age 65

  • How Medicare interacts with active coverage vs. COBRA, and the important pitfalls to avoid

  • Understanding how and when Medicare affects HSA eligibility, plus employer and employee strategies to address concerns

  • Addresses the registered domestic partner situations where plans are required to offer coverage based on state and local law

  • Most coverage is based on employers expanding eligibility with the optional company-defined domestic partnership category

  • The enduring imputed income tax issues for domestic partner coverage, plus how other group health plan rules like COBRA apply

  • San Francisco’s uniquely challenging law for employers requiring specific levels of health care expenditures for employees

  • Which employees can be excluded from the required health care expenditures, including voluntary waiver rules and strategies

  • How employers can comply for certain employees by contributing to the City Option to fund an MRA on their behalf

  • San Francisco’s uniquely challenging law for employers to supplement compensation for employees on new child bonding leave

  • How PPLO compensation interacts with California PFL to provide full pay to employees on parental leave, including the applicable caps

  • Common issues that arise, including compliance strategies that employers have developed both to comply and satisfy employees

Additional 2021 ABD EB Resources

Brian Gilmore
The Author
Brian Gilmore

Lead Benefits Counsel, VP, Newfront

Brian Gilmore is the Lead Benefits Counsel at Newfront. He assists clients on a wide variety of employee benefits compliance issues. The primary areas of his practice include ERISA, ACA, COBRA, HIPAA, Section 125 Cafeteria Plans, and 401(k) plans. Brian also presents regularly at trade events and in webinars on current hot topics in employee benefits law.

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