ACA Marketplace Notice Guidance and Employee Q & A

Back in May of this year (2013) the Department of Labor set a new deadline of OCTOBER 1, 2013 (originally March 1, 2013) for most employers to provide notices to their employees pertaining to the soon to be formed “health insurance marketplaces”.  Since this deadline is rapidly approaching, this week's blog post is dedicated to assisting readers and stakeholders with compliance with this requirement.
Click here to access the DOL's Technical Release of this requirement -
http://www.dol.gov/ebsa/newsroom/tr13-02.html

Technically, the DOL only required employers subject to the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) to provide the "marketplace notices".  But since the vast majority of employers are subject to FLSA, it is generally become accepted that any business or organization of any size should consider providing the notices. Notices are required to be made to ALL employees, regardless of plan participation, full-time/part-time status, etc.  Note: To access the DOL's guidance on FLSA applicability to your company/organization, click -  http://www.dol.gov/elaws/esa/flsa/scope/screen24.asp

The DOL has provided two (2) different notice templates, depending on whether the affected company/organization offers health insurance coverage to its employees:
1. Employers offering health insurance - http://www.dol.gov/ebsa/pdf/FLSAwithplans.pdf
2. Employers NOT offering health insurance - http://www.dol.gov/ebsa/pdf/FLSAwithoutplans.pdf
Additionally, the DOL has modified its model COBRA notice template to include language referencing the marketplaces - http://links.govdelivery.com/track?type=click&enid=ZWFzPTEmbWFpbGluZ2lkPTIwMTMwNTA4LjE4NTg3MzExJm1lc3NhZ2VpZD1NREItUFJELUJVTC0yMDEzMDUwOC4xODU4NzMxMSZkYXRhYmFzZWlkPTEwMDEmc2VyaWFsPTE3NTU3NTIzJmVtYWlsaWQ9ZXJpY2Euc3Rvcm1Aenl3YXZlLmNvbSZ1c2VyaWQ9ZXJpY2Euc3Rvcm1Aenl3YXZlLmNvbSZmbD0mZXh0cmE9TXVsdGl2YXJpYXRlSWQ9JiYm&&&103&&&http://www.dol.gov/ebsa/modelelectionnotice.doc

In anticipation of resultant questions (if not confusion!) resulting from receipt of the new notice, I have developed a “Marketplace Notice Q & A” which includes eight (8) questions I anticipate recipients of the notice might have. The intent of this Q&A is to explain the reason for the notice and what it says.  Feel free to copy/paste the eight (8) Q&A's into a document to be included with your notice template, and make any necessary edits.  Hopefully the document will reduce the number of questions that might otherwise be generated by the distribution and receipt of the notice. 

To access the complete article, click - https://smstevensandassociates.com/ResourceLibrary/tabid/192/Default.aspx