Department Of Labor: Monitoring Employee Benefits

The second way is for employers to utilize the health benefits laws self-compliance tools. There are two major sections listed under this link, HIPPA and other health care-related provisions and the affordable care act provisions. Employers can be used to compare the provisions of their plan to ensure they are compliant with HIPPA, affordable care act, and other health care-related provisions.

Congress enacted COBRA as a provision of ERISA to provide continued coverage for those who have lost their employment, including terminated employees; this law is also responsible for amending the Internal Revenue Code and the Public Health Service Act. The three main elements to qualify for COBRA are specific criteria regarding plans, qualified beneficiaries, and qualifying events. Group health plans for any employer who has 20+ employees for more than half the fiscal year is subject to COBRA. Qualified beneficiaries outlined by COBRA include any individual covered by the plan, including the employees spouse and dependent children; qualifying events are outlined by COBRA and specific causes for loss of health coverage that makes individuals eligible for benefits. COBRA is also used to notify, track, and document facets of compliance in accordance with outlined statutes.

The Information and Consultation of Employees Regulations give employees in larger firms ' ' those with 50 or more employees ' ' rights to be informed and consulted on a regular basis about issues in the business for which they work. The Regulations apply to businesses with:- 150+ employees from 6 April 2005; 100+ employees from 6 April 2007; and 50+ employees from 6 April 2008. They will not apply to businesses with less than 50 employees.

Independent audits of employee benefit plans are a vital accountability mechanism. An employee benefit plan audit provides a third-party, independent report to participants, plan managers, and the Department of Labor that indicates whether the plan’s financial statement provides accurate information to assess not only the plan’s present but future ability to pay participant’s benefits. An employee benefit plan audit must do more than substantiate financial statements; it must also address plan operations including helping to assess whether the plan is operating in accordance to the plan documents and amendments. There are multiple complex laws and regulations that employee benefit and retirement plans must also comply with, and failure to comply with such laws and regulation can result in substantial penalties. The Employee Retirement Security Act of 1974 requires that employee benefit plans with a hundred or more participants to be audited as part of their requirement to file annual Form 5500 report. The Form 5500 is filed with the Department of Labor and used to satisfy the Internal Revenue Service’s requirement to file an annual information return. Inconsistencies in the Form 5500 report can result in the Department of Labor performing their own audit. While auditing employee benefit plans, auditors often find operational and administrative issues encountered by plans. Of the many issues that arise, the more common problems are errors in definition of compensation,

Evaluate the company’s worker’s compensation insurance and ascertain if there may be duplication of coverage, and life and long-term disability plans and claims, as well as unemployment issues.

Stays updated about the policies and procedures of the company with regard to processing claims

The other human resource website I reviewed is www.ifebp.org. IFEBP stands for “International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans”. The mission and purpose for IFEBP is to provide education and source of employee benefits, compensation, and financial education. (http://www.ifebp.org/AboutUs/MisVis/) This website plays an important role in human resources because it plays an important role in teaching employees and employers about benefits and compensation. Compared to the other website where it looked at human resources as a whole, IFEBP looks at a specific section within human resources. IFEBP serves to Canada, public employee, corporate/single employer, multiemployer, and service providers. This means that a company can belong to this site where anyone can grant with access can look around, or people who are employees so they can further educate themselves. Companies may join this site to become more aware of trends, and how to have better employee benefit practices for the entire company. There are over 34,000 members who belong to IFEBP. (http://www.ifebp.org/Membership/FAQ/) Please see a screen shot below of all the different sectors. IFEBP is a non-profit organization, which has a nine-member executive member board that serves the company’s leadership roles. Roles range from President to Secretary. Also, a past President sits on the board.

One of the first types of benefit that will be discussed in this essay is Government-Mandated Social Security Programs which is talked about in chapter 7 of the textbook (Employee Benefits - A Primer for Human Resource Professionals, Fifth Edition, pp. 197-220). These types of programs can be considered as a complement to a company’s strategic planning process because of the laws that mandate certain aspects of employment within a company. The United States Government established Social Security and workers’ compensation insurance programs due to the social problems associated with chronic

Employees’ benefit plan is non-wage compensation, which means employees sacrifice part of their wages or salaries to exchange some other form of benefits. The purpose of benefit plans is to increase the security of employees, which consequently reduces work absenteeism and promotes job satisfaction. Some of the benefits in the plan include: retirement benefit plans, employee assistance plans, and group insurance (health, dental, life etc.). However, the scope of benefit coverage has gradually been expanded; from traditional benefit plans to flexible benefit plans. Both of these two benefit plans have different contents and emphases. Nowadays, about 60 percent of North American organizations prefer to use flexible benefit plans.

The content of this paper includes key excerpts and a condensation (compacted by >80%) of current knowledge regarding the administration of employee benefits as published by McGraw-Hill 2011 in “The Handbook of Employee Benefits: Health and Group Benefits, 7th Edition. Jerry S. Rosenbloom, editor”. This is the reference textbook for the International Foundation of Employee Benefits Plans (IFEBP), and Wharton (University of Pennsylvania), for those looking to certify as “Certified Employee Benefits Specialists” (CEBS).

According to the website, the organizational mission statement of the Employee Benefits Security Administration "is to assure the security of the retirement, health and other workplace related benefits of

To avoid any complications or misunderstandings between employers and employees, this relationship is governed by rules and laws.   The basis of these rules is the ESA (Employment

Employee Services (ES) department that is meant to deal with the contractor employees in all

requirements, however. For example ,the Fair Labor Standards Act requires overtime pay for nonexempt workers, as discussed in

To know the amount of the salaries and benefits that may be given to the employees.