Open Enrollment
Due to increased federal oversight, health insurance carriers currently have a lot less “wiggle room” than in the past to enroll employees beyond their official new hire enrollment periods. Local and national carriers frequently find themselves audited by one of several federal and state agencies to ensure that the carriers are consistently applying policies regarding eligibility, waiting periods, and enrollment deadlines.
Time Limits
As a result, if a new hire enrollment form is submitted after an employee should have been eligible (because it slipped off the radar of someone at your office), the insurance carrier probably will NOT be able to retroactively enroll that employee. Furthermore, depending on when any pre-existing coverage that employee had ended, he may not be able to apply for an individual policy to fill the gap until open enrollment, either. YOU, as the employer, may be liable for medical bills, tax penalties, etc. because you didn’t make your group coverage available to that employee.
Helping You Meet Deadlines
We at Encore Benefits have a number of tools and processes in place to help you enroll newly hired employees in a timely manner and ease the burden of administering employee benefits. These crucial tools and processes are available to employers at no extra cost. Please call us so we can get these safeguards in place before someone slips through the cracks!
