oriecat

Kirk, the buttons are wayyyy at the bottom of the main forum listings, just above the Board Statistics Box. Over on the right, you will see Mark all Posts Read and also Delete Cookies Set by this Board.

Ever since the board upgrade, my cookies aren't updating when I leave the board to show that I was here and read everything. Is anyone else having this problem? The only way I can get it to update is if I click the Mark all Posts as Read button, which I never had to do before.

No, you just said 60 is the minimum. That means if they elect COBRA on day 61 you'd have to give it to them. You need to specify the maximum of 60. (60 is the minimum under the COBRA regs, and then the maximum under your plan.) I'm not sure why you are asking about the underwriters approving anything. If you are required to provide COBRA, then it's probably already in your contract with the carrier.

I think you are misinterpreting the case (if you're thinking of the same one I am). The problem in that case is that the COBRA documents did not specify a maximum election period. So the employer/plan admin was trying to say, well COBRA already specifies a max of 60 days, so that's all you get. No, COBRA specifies a minimum of 60 days. You have to give them at least 60 days. You don't have to give them more than 60 days, as long as you tell them how long they have. At least this is my understanding...

Oooh on the main BenefitsLink site. I rarely look at that, I just come straight to the forum, so I thought you meant here.

It all looks the same to me?

Depending upon how small of an employer you have, you may be covered by New Jersey "mini-cobra" instead of federal COBRA. Here's a fact sheet on the NJ law. http://www.nj.gov/dobi/bulletins/sehblt05_01.pdf Good luck.

For the qualifying event of termination, continuation coverage is available for 18 months, if it is properly and timely elected and paid for.

It's always road construction season here. My background - my dad worked at the fire station with a guy who also worked part time selling medical equipment. One summer the accounting office needed someone to catch them up on their filing, so a temporary one month position before senior year of high school sounded good for a little extra cash.... and here I still am, having worked my way through accounts payable to payroll and now benefit administration... 17 years later...

Or another easy way to do it is to open up all of the pages you want in separate tabs, then go to Tools, Options, General and click the Use Current Page button. If multiple tabs are open it will insert all of them for you.

Many enrollment forms that I have seen have a statement in the terms that says that by signing the form, the employee agrees to pay any required premiums. So the signed authorization required under state law shouldn't be an issue, unless people are somehow getting enrolled without a form, or the form doesn't include that important wording.

DC FMLA is like the state equivalents, but for DC. It applies to employers with 20 or more employees. I would assume that since the OP didn't bring up FMLA, that they must have between 20 and 50 employees, but it would be good to have that clarified, to make sure there is no fedFMLA entitlement. But assuming federal doesn't apply, I don't understand the original question. If she used for 16 weeks, then her legal entitlement is used up and she has no more protected leave. You can certainly go beyond the law, but then should be prepared to do that for other employees who also use up their protected leave. Of course since you are using a look back period, you could check every day and she may then have leave available as the used days fall out of the lookback.

But everyone's doin' it, Mom!

It seems like I should get to make the laws, but it just hasn't happened yet.

Seems like if a state doesn't define "legally separated" then there would be no way for them to be "legally separated". Living apart would be separated, but not legally. Or so it would seem to me.

Yes, they are in the treasury regs. Forfeitures turn into experience gains for the plan, so if you want to search further on the issue, that term may be more fruitful. http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-utl/tres_reg-1125-2.pdf

I believe this would actually be a reason that you could terminate the COBRA coverage early. Does your plan allow them to stay on COBRA under the circumstances?

I'm not sure what I omitted. I asked if that was the however you meant. I thought it might have been, since it was a section that you had bolded in your post. Sorry for the confusion!

This "However"? This isn't relevant to the situation. The group health plan is not the one sharing the information.

I'd be interested to hear this too. We just got one of our Nov 1 renewals back and it came out at 28%. I know we had bad experience, but I would be curious to know how much of it might be trend. (We didn't get the full info yet.)

Yes, there are exceptions to the Privacy rule for Workers Comp issues. http://www.hhs.gov/ocr/hipaa/guidelines/wo...ompensation.pdf

I don't understand. You're saying that these people would need an alternate means because they couldn't reach the goal, but then that they might just take longer to reach the goal due to needing to lose weight slower. If they can still lose the weight, then they can still reach the goal, so no alternate should be needed for them, unless there was a timeframe placed on the goals, which isn't stated.

Good point, I missed the fact that this already happened. Change of status needs to occur within 30 days of the event.

I think so. Change of Provider is a qualifying reason.

You can always be more generous than the law requires, so it seems to me that if the plan doesn't want to require the full retro, then sure. Or are you wanting to deny the coverage because the full amount wasn't paid? What are all of the relevant dates?