Christine Oliver

Thanks, Peter!

Hello - Seeking compliance clarification on a few items. 1. HIPAA Special Enrollment Rights - Do I understand correctly that when an employee experiences of these events, in addition to adding a spouse or child to coverage, they must be allowed to add other dependents and change health, dental, vision plan elections? 2. Section 125 Plan Safe Harbor requiring reinstatement of same coverage within 30 days of loss of coverage due to rehire, expiration of benefit eligible FMLA or non-FMLA leave. Can an employer require/allow employee to make new elections if they want to? If so, should this be specified in the Plan Document and SPD?

My understanding is that as long as you apply hours and compensation in a consistent manner, it's okay to apply hours and compensation based on pay date. For example, we consistently apply hours and compensation that cross plan years by the pay date. Having to segregate hours seems onerous. Am I mistaken?

Thank you all!

Hello - My understanding is that if an employer finds ineligible dependents enrolled in health insurance plans as a result of an audit, the employer is not obligated to offer COBRA to those that are removed from coverage. Can the employer choose to extend COBRA to these folks or is that not permissible or creates other compliance issues.

As always, prompt and excellent guidance! Thanks, Brian!

We offered the new maximum DCFSA limit ($7,500), performed the test following our open enrollment period and have one HCE that elected the new maximum $7,500, that needs to be reduced in order to pass the test. My questions are: 1. Since it's possible for us to have another HCE enroll mid-year, am I correct that we have to apply the same reduction to any HCE mid-year enrollees? 2. If yes, how do we determine what the reduced amount should be? 3. Other than exclude HCEs altogether moving forward or setting a low election maximum, is there anything else I'm missing?

Wondering if anyone has thoughts on my April 29th post?

We are a university with a 401(k) Plan. Adjuncts are excluded, however, their hours worked matter for vesting purposes should they become eligible to participate in the plan (Adjunct to full-time faculty or staff). My understanding is that the 401(k) regulations do not expressly allow you to use the ACA calculation for purposes of a 401(k). Is that accurate, and if so, it seems there are no options aside from crediting them with a full equivalency, which is not reasonable. Am I missing something?

If you typically don't have a lot of full-time to part-time status changes, you can also choose not to continue coverage and count them against the 95% coverage threshold, correct? I understand that doing so could cause you to incur an affordability penalty.

Thank you, Brian. This is a brand, new vision plan (never had one before) so we are not offering to current COBRA participants.

Do employers have to offer a new vision plan (effective 1/1/25) to all current COBRA participants or only to those who become COBRA participants following the implementation of this new plan offering?

Thank you, Brian.

Thanks, Chaz, for clarifying my question better than I did!

Thanks, Brian, but just to be clear, I understand that dependents have independent election rights, but I'm asking if they can drop COBRA coverage once elected, mid-year, for any reason.