To successfully comply, information gathering and accurate reporting automation will be critical to assimilating all such vital information and to dispensing it to employees and required reporting agencies. The challenge facing employers is that they may not have immediate access to the data required to be compliant. Further, the data may be unavailable, unusable, or of questionable accuracy. Even with the right data, employers’ data gathering and compilation systems face new challenges to conduct proper analyses and to satisfy stringent ACA reporting requirements. The new systems will need to have the capacity to deliver actionable information, track, forecast, and manage costs and trends, and still meet reporting requirements. For public firms auditability is also important under Sarbanes-Oxley requirements. An automated system that accurately provides all of the required information is essential to ACA compliance. Non-compliance, even unintentional, can be expensive, trigger audits, and disrupt business operations. A system that provides centralized data and communicates changes instantaneously and accurately between HR, payroll, benefits, carriers, and third party administrators is essential in this new world dictated by the ACA.
What challenges do you face in meeting the 2015 ACA reporting requirements? What steps have you taken?
[1] U.S. employers under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) must make many decisions. Most importantly, at this time, is to decide whether it is financially and competitively advantageous to offer health coverage? This decision is called “Pay or Play”.