Second Open Enrollment?

[Guest JerseyGirl]

Ok, experts, I need either an opinion, or to be pointed in the direction of official guidence.

We are a TPA about to do a mid-year take over of a 125 plan that had been administered up until now in-house. The person doing the admin. was not as knowledgable as she could have been, and has now been fired. It is a calendar year plan, and we will begin on 7/1. My question is this: Can we have an open enrollment meeting to allow any qualifying employees who had not signed up before ( perhaps because it was not explained to them very well) to have the opportunity to do so now? We are not intending to allow any current participants to *opt-out* due to the administrative change or make any changes of election.

Thanks much!

[KIP KRAUS]

If you are merely taking over the administration of an existing 125 plan I don’t see how an open enrollment would be proper. A change in administration doesn’t change the status of the plan or the participants.

[Guest llerner]

How about if you terminate your old plan and start a new one with a slight modification, let's say dollar amount. It is a takeover plan, tighten up the language to be sure HIPAA/COBRA etc. provisionsi included.

[Lisa Hand]

I would not recommend the above suggestion to change the plan for a number of reasons. I entirely agree with Kip, you are taking over the administration, only. You should have an informational session to explain your services, not open enrollment. As a TPA, you should also have a legal guide which assists with these issues, since the advise and answers here are not in any way legal guidance.

[Guest JerseyGirl]

I have to agree with you , Lisa. The desire was to boost participation, but we could not come up with a legitimate reason to justify a second enrollment-- no matter how hard we tried. The responses here have confirmed that our decision is the right one; had the feed-back from the message board been more of a mixed bag, I would have gone to our in-house counselor for an official legal opinion. Hardly seems necessary at this point-- those who did not choose to participate will just have to wait 'til next year.

Thanks,

JerseyGirl