justasking

I am familiar with the new regs about adding ABA to all fully insured plans. Our self-funded plan currently offers some ABA therapy for speech, etc. However, we don't cover the full ABA treatments such as diagnosis, therapy, etc. since it would cost the plan $500,000-$1,000,000 a year for mid size company. In your professional opinion, could this be treated like OT/PT with number of visits being limited (20 visits a year) or maybe some other kind of other limit? Also can we limit it by age such as for children 5 and under since they would get free services through public schools (depending on the state)?

I have found every single beneficiary that is missing for our plan. I asked a third party to run their socials and provide me with their updated names and last known mailing address (most 401K providers have a vendor that they use and also banks/trust do this as well). It does cost $ to do the search. I sent a brief letter to that person letting them know that I need to talk to them about "deceased employees name" and if they could contact me. If the search does not come back with contact information, I pay additional money to have the social security number ran directly against SSA to see if the beneficiary is deceased. If that doesn't work, I just call SSA and let them know the situation, they may be able to help you. I cant tell you the number of times I just found the beneficiary by typing in the deceased retirees or former employees and the word obituary. I call the funeral home and often the person paying for the funeral is the beneficiary as well and the funeral home contacts that person and lets them know that our company is trying to reach out to them. I also have a lot of luck just typing in the persons name in the white pages. One time I found someone through classmates (our employee) who was getting ready to hit 70 1/2 and they didn't even know they left money on the table.

Background: We have an employee that wants us to prove that all wages being used in their pension is accurate for the last 30 years. The company I work for is in an industry where there are lots of mergers/acquisitions, etc. We hold the records in our payroll system for about the last ten years. The prior wages (mostly from other companies) came over on file feeds from prior retirement plan vendors. We do not have any other prior pension plan benefit offsets, our pension actually calculates the benefit for the entire 30 years (all wages, not a final 36 month pay pension). Most of the hourly employee eligible wages are for their normal scheduled work hours and excludes certain overtimes. The W2s wont really be much use to us in this situation. Question: Do we only need to provide proof for maybe the last three or maybe it is seven years of the wages being used in the calculation? We are able to print paychecks for the last 10 years. I just wanted to get your opinions before we double check with legal.

Thanks for responding, I appreciate it.

If employee switches to a PPO plan and had a HDHP/HSA the prior year (same employer), can they use the HSA to pay for eligible medical expenses for the new plan year on the PPO? If they are covered under a PPO with an FSA (not limited) can they also access the HSA funds previously contributed a prior year under the HDHP (of course not double dipping on same expense)?

What are your opinions on having a trust vs. not having a trust? Is there more tax advantages to having a trust, is it better for a fiduciary to have a trust?

The payroll system we use is a monster Payroll accidently sent a 401(k) negative contribution for someone that has never even been a participant in the plan. In our group we consider that an invalid record and it is deleted from the 401(k) records. However, I am considered about a negative showing up on their W2. If they were to send a positive amount to correct it for that person, then that person would have funds sent over to the 401(k) plan. Anhyone ever seen this before?

The employee returned to work recently, probably should add that note

If an employee initially elected to pay a loan over five years from their 401(k), goes on LTD (considered active under our plans) but did not pay anything for his loans during that time, would he owe everything from while he was out or could the length of the loan be extended for the period while on leave? Yikes (Also notice the employee didnt pay premiums on LTD for medical either, guessing the employee has to pay all that as well.......was out a long long time).

I am going back into the benefit profession and a little rusty around the corners. I wondered if someone could be so kind of explain how a large employer that offers self insurance medical health plans will know if an employee gets a goverment subsidy on the exchange? Is that something that is asked on an open enrollment form? Does the employee have a field that states I am opting out of company plan to be on a private exchange with the gov. subsidy? Or does an employer run salaries and try to guess which employees might take it? Little confused on the process. And once it is determined someone received the subsidy, when and where is the penalty paid? Does this also apply to the few plans out there that are grandfathered? Anything else I might have missed in the last few years for large employers