When is a deadline not a deadline? When it’s set by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
The latest one to be pushed back involves an employer summary of benefits designed to help plan members better understand what their health insurance covers.
Employers were supposed to be ready to produce such a document (no longer than four pages) by this coming September.
But employers howled that the deadline was too tight.
Now, the Department of Labor says that the feds won’t be ready with a template and related document to share with employers until at least January 2016, so employers are off the hook for a while.
In fact, now the plan summaries won’t be required until the 2016 enrollment period for coverage that begins on or after Jan. 1, 2017.
Essentially, the feds are taking the advice of the National Business Group on Health, which, in a comment during the rulemaking process last March, suggested the government “delay the effective date of the SBC and uniform glossary requirements to the first day of the first plan year beginning 12 months after the issuance of final regulations.”
Who says they’re not listening in D.C.?
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Dan Cook
Dan Cook is a journalist and communications consultant based in Portland, OR. During his journalism career he has been a reporter and editor for a variety of media companies, including American Lawyer Media, BusinessWeek, Newhouse Newspapers, Knight-Ridder, Time Inc., and Reuters. He specializes in health care and insurance related coverage for BenefitsPRO.
