Now more than ever, a strong employee benefits program is vital to your business as a way of attracting and retaining talent. By offering quality health insurance and other sponsored benefits your company is positioned to achieve high workplace satisfaction and productivity. However, the mismanagement of your benefits can expose your business to financial loss, as well as the loss of valuable staff.
Here are 5 elements that are key to successful employee benefit administration:
1. Membership and Billing Management
For employers who offer employee benefits the most common loss stems from simple “membership vs. billing” discrepancies that go unnoticed (aka – someone is terminated but they continue to be billed on the health benefit plan). If unaddressed, this can lead to incorrect employee payroll deductions and additional premium absorbed by the employer.
The good news is most insurance carriers will consider adjustments if they are reported within 90 days of the original effective date of change and guarantee the adjustment if reported within 30 days. Be sure to have a monthly process in place for auditing your invoices against your plan’s membership to avoid losses.
2. Education
Losses are not always monetary. Very often, when employers self-administer their health plan, they’re not equipped to thoroughly educate their staff on the best ways to access, manage and maximize their benefits. A licensed resource will empower your staff to understand how to locate doctor networks, interpret their benefit summaries, access ID cards and will protect from time-loss or expensive misunderstandings.
3. Compliance
Beyond having processes in place for day-to-day administration you must ensure that you are fulfilling requirements specific to your company’s size as defined by the Employer HealthCare Mandate. You must understand how to properly calculate Full Time Equivalents (FTE) as it is necessary in order to assure compliance. Contact C3 if you need assistance calculating your FTE.
4. Documentation aka The CYA Factor
The most crucial part of your compliance and administration is documentation. Whether it is an employer-employee communication, a benefit offering, a plan-change notice (the list goes on and on…), your efforts go to waste if you are unable to prove that they took place.
Sufficient documentation not only protects you from legal liability and penalties, it also protects you from extra work! Make sure you can quickly locate communication records to prevent significant time wasted on duplicated efforts and misunderstandings.
5. Technology
The surefire way to have a handle on the above four points is to have the right employee management, payroll, and benefit enrollment software. C3 provides the latest employee benefits technology, free of charge to our clients. These automated systems can augment day-to-day burdens like time-stamping employer communications, tracking employees’ clicks to ensure content is being reviewed and documenting membership requests.
With the support of a dedicated Benefits Account Manager and our innovative technology, C3 is able to act as the hub for your Employee Benefits program and we can help you bridge the gaps between Payroll, Human Resources and Accounting.
For more information, contact a C3 Benefits broker [email protected].
Here are 5 elements that are key to successful employee benefit administration:
1. Membership and Billing Management
For employers who offer employee benefits the most common loss stems from simple “membership vs. billing” discrepancies that go unnoticed (aka – someone is terminated but they continue to be billed on the health benefit plan). If unaddressed, this can lead to incorrect employee payroll deductions and additional premium absorbed by the employer.
The good news is most insurance carriers will consider adjustments if they are reported within 90 days of the original effective date of change and guarantee the adjustment if reported within 30 days. Be sure to have a monthly process in place for auditing your invoices against your plan’s membership to avoid losses.
2. Education
Losses are not always monetary. Very often, when employers self-administer their health plan, they’re not equipped to thoroughly educate their staff on the best ways to access, manage and maximize their benefits. A licensed resource will empower your staff to understand how to locate doctor networks, interpret their benefit summaries, access ID cards and will protect from time-loss or expensive misunderstandings.
3. Compliance
Beyond having processes in place for day-to-day administration you must ensure that you are fulfilling requirements specific to your company’s size as defined by the Employer HealthCare Mandate. You must understand how to properly calculate Full Time Equivalents (FTE) as it is necessary in order to assure compliance. Contact C3 if you need assistance calculating your FTE.
4. Documentation aka The CYA Factor
The most crucial part of your compliance and administration is documentation. Whether it is an employer-employee communication, a benefit offering, a plan-change notice (the list goes on and on…), your efforts go to waste if you are unable to prove that they took place.
Sufficient documentation not only protects you from legal liability and penalties, it also protects you from extra work! Make sure you can quickly locate communication records to prevent significant time wasted on duplicated efforts and misunderstandings.
5. Technology
The surefire way to have a handle on the above four points is to have the right employee management, payroll, and benefit enrollment software. C3 provides the latest employee benefits technology, free of charge to our clients. These automated systems can augment day-to-day burdens like time-stamping employer communications, tracking employees’ clicks to ensure content is being reviewed and documenting membership requests.
With the support of a dedicated Benefits Account Manager and our innovative technology, C3 is able to act as the hub for your Employee Benefits program and we can help you bridge the gaps between Payroll, Human Resources and Accounting.
For more information, contact a C3 Benefits broker [email protected].
