If you provide an employer healthcare plan, it’s vital to ensure only the correct people are covered. Comprehensive healthcare insurance is one of the most important benefits you provide to employees, so keeping premiums down matters to everyone.
One of the main causes of rising premiums and healthcare costs is when ineligible people continue to be covered on a healthcare plan. For employer-provided health insurance, ineligible people are typically:
- Former employees who have now left your business.
- Employees whose status has changed, meaning they are no longer eligible under the plan, or should be on a different plan.
- Dependents of an employee, where the status of the dependent has changed.
Examples of ineligible people for a healthcare plan
The following situations could all cause people to become ineligible.
- A dependent child who ages beyond the dependent eligibility requirements in the plan.
- A former spouse who separated from your employee.
- An employee who leaves your business.
- An employee whose status has changed, for example through changing the number of hours worked or moving to a different position, and whose new status requires a different healthcare plan.
Creating a healthcare eligibility audit
You need a process to understand and remove people from your employer-provided healthcare plan. Here’s how to put an “Employee and dependent healthcare eligibility audit” together.
Understand the eligibility requirements of your current employer-provided healthcare plans
Go through any existing employer-provided plans and note down:
- All employees currently covered by the plan.
- All dependents currently covered by the plan.
- Eligibility requirements for employees.
- Eligibility requirements for employee dependents.
- Benefits and coverage provided.
You may hold this information internally, or you can get the data from your broker or healthcare insurance provider.
Analyze your existing employee data
Match your existing employee data against the healthcare plan eligibility requirements. Check:
- Any employee listed as being on the plan is still employed by you.
- Any dependent listed on the plan is still a dependent on the employee.
- The type of healthcare plan is appropriate for the status of the employee.
- All eligibility requirements are being met by any active plan participants.
Find gaps in the data
It’s likely that you will find gaps in the information. You may not have the latest details of dependents or employees. Complete a gap analysis to understand the data you need to ensure only appropriate people are covered by the plan.
Carry out a healthcare eligibility audit to close any gaps
Once you know what data you need, you will need to audit the information with your employees. Approach each employee with the details of their health insurance for them and their dependents and ask if all the information is factual and correct. If it is, get them to sign off on the information.
If the data is incorrect, get it updated and see how it affects healthcare eligibility. Communicate this back to the employee.
Careful communication is key
You will need to communicate carefully throughout this process. Employees may see the eligibility audit as a tool for taking away healthcare coverage. It’s important to manage the message carefully — The audit ensures only appropriate, eligible people are covered. That means less cost-leakage and medical expenses on plans, which keeps premiums down and ensures the right people have the right coverage.
You may want to complete the healthcare eligibility audit every year. This will ensure your records are up to date and reduce the premiums you and your employees need to spend.
Jill Goulet
Risk Management Consultant
jgoulet@srfm.com
