VEChannel Event Profile

The 6 Most Common Mistakes in COBRA Administration

Despite the fact that COBRA has been in existence for almost 20 years, there are still several critical requirements that are often misunderstood and, worse yet, misapplied in performing COBRA administration. These include: Failure to provide a general notice at all Failure to provide COBRA notices to all eligible parties Failure to provide open enrollment rights Failure to recognize certain qualifying events Inadvertently providing coverage when it isnt required, or providing more coverage than is required Misunderstanding the requirements when an employee and/or spouse is involved in COBRA and Medicare issues An innocent mistake in any one of these areas could result in huge penalties, fines, and court awards. It could also result in the employer having to pay a large medical claim outside of the health plan or without reimbursement from the stoploss carrier. This 90minute webcast will look at each of these important areas and tell what you must do to ensure that you are in compliance with the requirements. Here are examples of some typical questions that will be addressed: An employer provides a severance agreement to a terminating executive that includes continuation under the health plan. Should the employer offer COBRA at the time of the termination, or only when the former executives extended severance agreement benefit offer runs out? A qualified beneficiary/continuee adds his spouse to his COBRA health insurance at open enrollment and they later divorce. Does the spouse have any COBRA rights? What if a qualified beneficiary gets married and, through special enrollment, adds his spouse to his health insurance. Does she have any COBRA rights? This qualified beneficiary also adopts her daughter and adds her to his insurance. Does she have any COBRA rights? Has an employee had a qualifying event is she is on Workers Compensation? What is COBRAs purpose in requiring the General Notice, who must receive it, and how must it be provided? What must a plan sponsor do when a qualified beneficiary makes her election to participate in their health plan after the start of a new plan year and the election is retroactive to before the end of the previous plan year? Is the answer different if the plan sponsor has changed carriers as of the new plan year? An employee informs her employer of her divorce six months after it is final. The employee is an upper level executive and the employer would like to be accommodating – should they offer COBRA to her exspouse and if so, what is the date of the qualifying event? During open enrollment an employee chooses to drop family coverage and elect single only coverage – should the plan sponsor offer his spouse COBRA? What if the reason given for the change in coverage is a pending divorce? Dont miss this opportunity to learn how you can avoid these common COBRA mistakes. Register today!

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