 Have you ever had one of your employees notify you of a divorce ........ WHEN THEY TRY TO ADD A NEW SPOUSE TO THE HEALTH PLAN?
Have you ever had one of your employees notify you their covered dependent dropped out of school ...... OVER A YEAR AGO?
Have you ever had an employee remove a spouse from the health plan at open enrollment ....... AND TELL YOU ITS BECAUSE THEY ARE GETTING A DIVORCE?
What are the COBRA timelines in the above situations? Do we even have to offer COBRA? How do we handle it if the employee is the CEO as compared to the janitor? When is the COBRA "Unavailability" notice sent? Do they owe back premium?
These are some of the situations and questions that cause many of us in the COBRA business to take medication simply to make it through the day! You have taught me well when it comes to the challenges you face in confidently administering the group health plan. These include long hours, a variety of different health plans (all with their own rules), constantly changing state/federal laws, and lack of education. But nowhere does this challenge become more acute, than when dealing with employees and their responsibility to notify you of a divorce or a dependent ceasing to be a dependent under the terms of the group health plan. It’s great when things go right, but when things go wrong, they go downhill in a hurry.
So the purpose of "Managing COBRA and Divorces - Without Going Crazy" is simply to help things go right! By working together through education, we can build your confidence level in dealing with these two areas of benefit administration. This will then crossover into smoother COBRA administration. Everybody wins, including you and the employee or qualified beneficiary. |
