Employer Notice RE Health Insurance Due to Employees October 1st

Part of the Affordable Care Act requires many employers to give employees a Notice regarding Health Insurance available through the employer.  The original due date of this Notice was March 1, 2013, but the Department of Labor (DOL) moved this date back to October 1, 2013.  The notice must be given to all employees regardless of their full-time or part-time status.  Employees that are hired after October 1, 2013, must be given the notice at the time of hiring (defined as “within 14 days of the employee’s start date”).

Firms covered by the FLSA (Fair Labor Standards Act) are generally required to provide a notice to employees of health insurance coverage options available to them.  This appears to include most firms that have $500,000 or more in annual dollar volume of business AND at least one employee.  Businesses in the following categories also appear to be required to provide this notice regardless of their dollar volume of business:  hospitals; institutions primarily engaged in the care of the sick, aged, mentally ill, or disabled who reside on the premises; schools for children who are mentally or physically disabled or gifted; preschools, elementary and secondary schools, and institutions of higher education; and federal, state, and local government agencies.  More details can be found on the DOL and FLSA web sites.  We recommend everyone provide this notice as a way to avoid any adverse consequences.  We do not currently see penalties associated in connection with this Notice requirement, but we have not looked carefully for such.

The DOL has created Model Notices for this purpose.  They can be found by going to www.dol.gov and typing MODEL NOTICE in the Search box.  Or go to www.dol.gov, click on Affordable Care Act under the RESOURCES heading, and then on the Model Notices link.

There are two model notices:  one for employers who offer a health plan to some or all employees, and one for employers who do not offer a health plan.  The model plans are available in pdf format (English or Spanish) as well as in MS Word format.

More information regarding this requirement can be found at the DOL website.  We can also send you the English pdf copy of the Notices attached to an email upon request.