The Right Prescription for Your Business
Relieving the Burdens of Health Care Reform
Government calls it an overhaul. Business owners call it overwhelming. But Administaff clients can rest easy, knowing they have a team of dedicated professionals from a dozen different disciplines working together on their behalf to make health care reform as painless as possible.
Benefits Team
Administaff’s Health & Welfare Services group is at the heart of our health care reform efforts. These benefits professionals must analyze and understand the new health care reform requirements and what they mean to our benefit plans. From there, they must implement any required changes, work with insurance carriers to update contracts and policies, and administer plans in compliance with the new rules – all while continuing to ensure compliance with numerous existing local, state and federal laws that affect our plans.
To perform this critical job, they work closely with industry leaders – including key people at our insurance carriers, our benefits consulting firms and our legal counsel. That way, Administaff makes certain that clients receive accurate information about new developments in a timely fashion. When it comes to managing our benefits plans and contracts – and checking to make sure that “all the I’s are dotted and the T’s crossed” – Administaff’s Health & Welfare Services group leads the charge.
Inside Legal Counsel (Photo: Andra Sammons & Dan Pollina)
Administaff’s onsite legal team has been reviewing the new law and related guidance in order to focus on how they apply to the co-employment relationship we have with our clients. The team’s comprehensive research effort also includes working with outside legal counsel to ensure the compliance of the payroll services and group health plans we offer our clients – an exhaustive effort that involves sifting through all of the details of the legislation’s 2,000+ pages. That way, clients can devote their attention to driving business forward.
Outside Legal Counsel
Administaff has a large team of outside legal counsel dedicated to researching and understanding this new law. Because this team deals with a broad base of clients beyond Administaff, it is able to offer a useful perspective, provide guidance for strategic planning and help us devise solutions for delivering valuable plans to our clients.
Benefits Consulting Firms
Administaff consults with several nationally prominent benefits consulting firms for additional expertise and guidance on health care reform and its effect on the benefits plans we offer employees through the co-employment relationship. Because of their experience with a wide range of employers and insurers, these firms can offer a broad perspective on benefits plan design to help Administaff stay competitive as well as compliant with new reform requirements. Administaff’s benefits programs play an important role in the ability of our clients to attract high-caliber employees.
Insurance Carriers
Administaff’s nationally recognized health insurance carriers are also working diligently to analyze the law and determine what it means for the policies they provide to clients. Right now, their efforts are focused on ensuring that their policies comply with the new requirements of health care reform, such as the adult child coverage to “age 26” provision. Administaff’s health insurance carriers are leaders in the industry, and our clients can be assured that the coverage provided to their employees complies with the new health care reform mandates.
Industry Groups
Administaff uses its industry group affiliations – for example, the National Association of Professional Employer Organizations (NAPEO) – to ensure that the co-employment relationship between Administaff and its clients is acknowledged in health care reform. Our clients can be confident that Administaff will continue its efforts to promote recognition of the value of the PEO relationship. For example, Administaff’s efforts at the time the new law was passed helped to ensure that our clients are not excluded from the Small Business Health Care Tax Credit as a result of the co-employment relationship.
Service Teams
When it comes to taking care of our clients’ needs at Administaff, a key differentiator to our service is that each of our clients has a dedicated team of human resource professionals at their service – and they are at attention every day to field questions, address concerns as they arise and respond to situations that require special care. Administaff clients receive proactive updates and enjoy easy access to the answers and help they need regarding their responsibilities as employers, as well as health care reform’s impact on Administaff’s plans and processes.
Contact Center
Administaff’s Contact Center is just a phone call away for clients and all of their employees, from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. CT Monday through Friday. Last year, more than 95 percent of Contact Center callers got what they needed during the very first call – more than 20 percent higher than the industry average of 75 percent for first-call resolution. This world-class responsiveness reassures our clients’ employees while taking over the client’s burden of fielding repeated questions. The Contact Center plays an important role in health care reform by addressing client and employee concerns about the impact of health care reform on their Administaff benefit plans.
Communications
The communications staff at Administaff works with many of the groups featured in this slideshow in their efforts to keep clients and employees informed with timely, accurate information. Among these efforts are communications to employees regarding changes to their Administaff benefits – including any special enrollment opportunities – which relieves clients of this enormous burden.
Administaff Payroll
Administaff’s payroll teams are always at the ready to comply with new payroll and W-2 reporting requirements – including those implemented as a result of health care reform. Thanks to their efforts, our clients can be confident that their payroll and reports will be on time and correct.
Software Engineers
Administaff has numerous IT professionals that are prepared to make necessary changes to the information systems we use to administer our benefits plans and track the data needed for any compliance with government reporting, including certain reports our clients may need to file under the new health care reform law.
Report Writers
While our software engineers make sure our information systems are updated to track the data needed for government reporting related to health care reform, it’s our dedicated team of report writers who will design and implement the reports used to comply with those requirements. For example, right now they are working on the employment data reporting that qualified clients will need to take advantage of the new Small Business Health Care Tax Credit.
