- Despite the risks associated with noncompliance, only two-thirds of respondents have a formal compliance strategy and, while 69% have a dedicated governance and/or compliance team, 31% do not.
- Fewer employers planned to update their SPDs this year, with just 16% planning a rewrite for readability (down 50%) and 67% planning content updates.
- About a quarter (26%) of respondents update and distribute SPDs to their active employees every year, but by far summaries of material modification (SMMs, 67%) or notices in annual enrollment material (46%) were the preferred methods for alerting participants to new plan changes.
- More employers (45%) are using or planning to use social media (such as Twitter or Facebook) to communicate with employees and retirees.
- The biggest challenges facing employers when it comes to producing SPDs are having sufficient resources and managing the review process. And twice as many respondents as last year indicated “writing” was a challenge.
- More employers are producing ACA-required materials in-house than in previous years. Forty percent of respondents generated SBCs themselves this year (up from just 18% last year) and 68% planned to produce the Notice of Coverage Options in-house.
Thursday, January 23, 2014
The Changing Face of Employer Benefit Plan Compliance Under PPACA
Highlights from the survey include:
