ACA Updates, What You Should Know

Earlier this month, the Federal Registrar released an update to the final rules regarding ACA processing and requirements.

Here are some updates pertaining to staffing firm compliance:

• For the pay or play calculations, the definition of a large employer has been changed from 50+ FTE’s to 100+ FTE’s.
• For employers classified as large, the percentage of eligible employees the law would require companies offer MEC (minimum essential coverage) to has changed from 96 percent to 70 percent.
• The penalties for not offering coverage to employees have been made less severe. They won’t apply to the first 80 full-time employees. Previously they would have applied to any over 30 full-time employees.
• Previously, the penalty for break in service was 26 weeks. This has been decreased to 13 weeks, however, for staffing the break in service rule of longer than previous assignment still exists.

Some ACA rules that still have yet to be finalized?

• Non-discrimination rules.
• Variable hour rules. As of right now, they’re still based on a determination at time of hire.

Avionte Staffing Software has ACA functionality so our clients are covered.

We’ve created tools within Avionté Staffing Software for reporting, data capture, compliance and notification; it’s everything you could need to be set when the full range of changes take effect on January 1, 2015. Review our ACA handout and our Affordable Care Act (ACA) process overview, or contact us with any questions you may have.

We will be updating ACA functionality based on the new rules. The changes we’ll be making include:

• A 13-week break in service rule to reset measurement periods.
• The new reporting calls will require indicating whether dependents were offered coverage or not at the employee level. An option will be added to record dependent coverage other than by Contribution/Deduction transaction type.
• Once the report spec has been released, we’ll create a matching report.

We’ll hold series of webinars later this spring to review the new rules, logic, and functionality that we have in Avionte. Stay tuned for dates and times, which we’ll send out in early April.

Feeling behind on the ACA? The entire law is up on hss.gov.