What must the employer do to be in Compliance with the Massachusetts Chapter 58 Regulations?

The regulations are complex and evolving on a regular basis. A summary is provided for your reference. Complete details are available on the connector website at http://www.mahealthconnector.org

Benefits Corporation of America has also produced 'A Guide to Outsourcing the Compliance for Employers with Massachusetts Employees'.

To satisfy these new mandates employers must develop a compliance process to identify those Massachusetts employees that are subject to the new regulations. The employers must then implement and operate at a minimum:

• A Section 125 Cafeteria Plan, to include procedures for enrollment, communications and administration.
• A compliance process to publish, collect and store the Employee Health Insurance Disclosure Form (‘HIRD”) mandated by the law.
• A payroll deduction facility and a communications process with the Massachusetts State Connector to exchange data on eligibility, payroll deductions, status under corporate plans etc.

For employers there are essentially four requirements.

The first requirement mandates the employer adopt a Cafeteria Plan. This will require an employer create a plan; make it available to eligible employees for their enrollment or waiver.

The second requirement mandates that the employer to obtain a form from each employee “without” health coverage will require identifying the employee, preparing a form for them and collecting and storing the forms. Both of these mandates will require some form of administrative procedure, record keeping, reporting and communication with individual employees.

The third Requirement, the Fair Share is a calculation that is applied to the overall census and will require some reporting and administration on an annual basis. In general it will not be applicable to larger employers with a sponsored employer subsidized health plan.

The fourth Requirement, the Free Rider subsidy applies only to employers without a Cafeteria Section 125 plan.