Special Enrollment Rights for Newborn that Dies Before 30 day Enrollment Period Ends?

[Guest lawdawg]

Newborn baby dies 10 days after it is born. Parents have not enrolled baby to date but they are still within the 30 day special enrollment period. Can they enroll the child to cover child during the 10 days child was living. They also want to increase health FSA election to cover expenses during the 10 day period.

HIPAA gives 30 days to enroll with retroactive coverage back to date of birth. I can't find anything that won't allow them to enroll to cover child for 10 days and then revoke the coverage due to a status change (death of the child). Any thoughts?

[oriecat]

I think they should be allowed to make any changes. A child who was born and died in the same year is still considered a tax dependent for the year, so I don't see why the status changes wouldn't be allowed, since they did in fact have a change in the number of dependents.

Does your health plan provide a period of coverage for newborns before they are required to be on the plan? Both of ours give the first 30 days, so in this case we wouldn't need to add the child. I thought it was fairly common.

[jsb]

As with Oriecat, our plans would automatically cover a newborn for the first 30 days. In this case, no enrollment would be required. However, if your health plan requires enrollment (and then disenrollment), it should be permitted.

Regarding the FSA, since changes can only be made on a prospective basis I don't see how you can go back and change FSA contribution limits to cover the expenses of the newborn.

[Guest lawdawg]

That is what I thought but I'm glad to hear others agree. We do require people to actually enroll their newborns. We do not provide automatic coverage.