Required annual notices: Which ones do you have to send and when?

It’s vital you make sure employees get all required annual notices. It’s part of your job as the administrator of your firm’s health and wellness benefits plan.

And with so many people still working from home, how should you distribute them?

Required notices

Here are the notices you need to provide to stay in compliance for 2022:

1. Medicare Part D Notice of Credible Coverage – This form tells employees your plan’s prescription drug coverage matches a Medicare Part D plan. It goes to Part D eligible individuals. That includes those “enrolled in Part A or Part B who live in the service area of a Part D plan.”

Your best bet is to send it to all employees. Reason: Identifying which employees, spouses or dependents enrolled in Part A or B, and want to enroll is almost impossible.

This notices delivered deadline: Oct. 15. While you can deliver it by hand, remote/flex work arrangements make that difficult. But you can also deliver it by first class mail, or electronically, if employees have access to your “electronic information system on a daily basis as part of their work duties.”

2. Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) Notice: You need to distribute this notice to eligible employees for premium assistance through CHIP or Medicaid state programs. Again, distribute it to all employees so you don’t have to track each employee’s state premium assistance programs.

This notice doesn’t have a specific distribution date. However, if you send it with all other major notices it won’t get overlooked. Just make sure it appears as a separate notice.

Accepted distribution methods:

• hand delivery
• first class mail, or
• electronically “where the ERISA electronic disclosure safe harbor is satisfied.”

3. Women’s Health and Cancer Rights Act (WHCRA) Notice – The WHCRA gives protections to individuals (no matter their gender) who elect breast reconstruction after a mastectomy. If your health plan offers mastectomy coverage, you must also provide coverage for certain services relating to the mastectomy.

Notices must be provided upon enrollment and then on a yearly basis. It’s best to send it to all participants and beneficiaries covered under your health plan. Sending it with the other required annual notices is easiest, since it doesn’t have a specific distribution date.

Accepted distribution methods:

• hand delivery
• first class mail, or
• electronically “where the ERISA electronic disclosure safe harbor is satisfied.”

Recommended, but not required

Not all notices require annually distribution. But a few that industry experts recommend you include with your annual notices:

•   HIPAA Special Enrollment Notice – You’re required to provide this notice when you give employees the opportunity to enroll in your health plan. However, the importance of this info deserves yearly delivery. So sending it annually with your other required notices is a best practice to implement.

•   Primary Care Provider Designation Patient Protection Notice – When you provide summary plan descriptions, that’s the time you must distribute this notice. But in the case of a DOL investigation/audit, the agency requires evidence the employer provided it to plan participants as part of it standard list of documents. So it’s best to send it annually with the other required notices.

•   ADA Wellness Program Notice – Notices need to go out before employees give you any health info. And firms must give employees time to decide if they want to participate in the program. Sending it annually with other notices avoids claims by employees claiming they weren’t informed of their ADA rights with respect to the wellness program.