403(b) Erisa Covered Plan with Excluded Classes

[Guest Nabiyah1]

Is there any information available specifically outlining or at least providing some guidance on how to validate classification of an excluded population within a plan?

There is a Hospital that wants to exclude a population of employees that don't work a regularly scheduled shift. They are not really "on-call" but they seem to be more seasonal employees. Under the age and service requirements, this seems to be a "disguised service condition." Therefore they are trying to come up with another way of identifying these employees. None of the employees in question work for any particular area or department, nor are they salaried vs hourly or anything like that. These employees are considered nonbenefiting and are paid a differential in lieu of benefits, is this allowed? Does anyone know how other hospitals are excluding this type of population? I am not sure they can identify these employees other than by the season they work and that seems to be a service violation.

Please help.