Is your company at risk?
Do you know your Health Plan Fiduciary Obligations?
If you offer an employee retirement plan, then you’re aware of what your fiduciary responsibility is to your employees. You have always had the same fiduciary responsibilities for your health plan, but until now no one talked about it or paid attention. With the changes brought about to ERISA, the Public Health Service Act, and Internal Revenue Code by the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021, and the subsequent Johnson & Johnson lawsuit you can no longer ignore your risk. And it doesn’t matter if you’re fully insured or self-funded, a large employer or a small employer. You have the same fiduciary liability. Your insurance carrier can’t protect you from this liability, because while you may rely on them for some of the responsibility, the liability is still yours. The Dept. of Labor won’t pursue your carrier for breach of fiduciary responsibility – even if they caused the breach. They’ll come after you.
To protect yourself (fiduciary liability is a personal liability) and your business you need to take steps to become a Compliant Health Plan Fiduciary. What are those steps?
1. Gain Education & Familiarize the changes brought by CAA-21
2. Select appropriate personnel for a Health Plan Fiduciary Committee
3. Create a Health Plan Committee Charter that :
i. Demonstrates your best effort to become accountable to your plan participants
ii. Perform Benchmarking to ensure your plan costs are reasonable
iii. Create and securely store Documentation that verifies your efforts
4. Complete Gag Clause Attestation, RxDC reporting, Mental Health Parity Testing & Attestation, and Solicit Compensation Disclosures from your Brokers and Advisors
Sound daunting? It doesn’t have to be. We can help you become a compliant health plan fiduciary through a limited scope, cost-effective consulting assignment. We will provide:
A personalized Project Plan unique to your business needs
Guidance through each and every step of the process
Sample letter templates and documents
On-line secure document storage for all your fiduciary content
On-line Glossary of all relevant terms
Resource links to legal cases, key government websites, and more.
This process can take as little as 60 to 90 days, and our consulting fee is an all-inclusive one-time fee.