COBRA vs eligiblity for Er's health ins

[Guest kimb]

A client of ours has an employee that is currently on COBRA. Their COBRA will expire soon (18 month limit) and the employee wants to elect the employers Health Insurance when it does. The problem is this employee was eligible for coverage under the employers plan earlier in the year and declined it to stay on COBRA.

Did the employee miss their chance when they became eligible and declined or is the COBRA ending an ok event to allow the employee to elect coverage under the employer's insurance in this situation? I've checked the plan doc's and I'm not finding anything on this. It all pretains to either the termed employees rights or if employee can pre-tax their COBRA premiums.

Any and all advise would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

[oriecat]

Yes, the ending of the COBRA period provides special enrollment rights under HIPAA.

See the following from the HIPAA FAQs at HHS.

http://cms.hhs.gov/hipaa/online/Group/hipa...p?record=540061

[GBurns]

Shouldn't the answer be No, since the question was "Did the employee miss their chance ..."?

[mroberts]

I agree that the employee should be allowed to elect the employer's health plan due to the special enrollment provision via HIPAA.

[oriecat]

Shouldn't the answer be No, since the question was "Did the employee miss their chance ..."?

No, the question I answered was the second half "or is the COBRA ending an ok event to allow the employee to elect coverage under the employer's insurance in this situation?"

[GBurns]

So therefore the employee did not miss his chance and should be allowed to elect coverage under the employer's plan.