Monthly Archives: February 2016

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Payroll Vendor Doing ACA Reporting … MUST be HIPAA Compliant

Posted on by ACA Reporting Service

For payroll companies performing ACA reporting, we are increasingly finding that they forgot one very important detail … HIPAA and HITECH Compliance.

The reason most payroll companies forget about this detail is that they normally work with employee specific information regarding payroll records.  For payroll record specific information, HIPAA privacy rules have an exception that allow for the data to not be considered Protected Health Information (PHI).

When it comes to ACA Reporting however, there is no similar exception.

The information that is necessary to complete ACA reporting (list here)  contains employee Social Security Numbers that are connected with medical plan enrollment details.  For this reason, the data necessary to complete ACA Reporting must include PHI and thus the HIPAA and HITECH Compliance rules come into effect.

These rules require many various things, including the following:

  • Employers must enter into a Business Associate Agreement with any vendor they share PHI to in order to complete ACA reporting.
  • Once the vendor (payroll company in this case) comes into contact with the PHI, they have responsibilities to encrypt and safeguard this information.
  • Any communication that includes PHI (emails, etc) must be sent encrypted in order to ensure compliance
  • Once the payroll company receives the data, they must maintain all other HIPAA and HITECH compliance items regarding how the data is accessed and stored.

….So one quick question you can ask yourself is, “Did I sign a Business Associate Agreement with the payroll company I hired to do my Affordable Care Act Reporting?”.  If the answer to that is No, then you might have a problem.

This link is a blog article from the American Institute of CPAs that you might find helpful on this topic. (link here)

If you are curious how we handle HIPAA Compliance for our clients, you can learn more here.

Uncategorized

Payroll Vendor Doing ACA Reporting … MUST be HIPAA Compliant

Posted on by ACA Reporting Service

For payroll companies performing ACA reporting, we are increasingly finding that they forgot one very important detail … HIPAA and HITECH Compliance.

The reason most payroll companies forget about this detail is that they normally work with employee specific information regarding payroll records.  For payroll record specific information, HIPAA privacy rules have an exception that allow for the data to not be considered Protected Health Information (PHI).

When it comes to ACA Reporting however, there is no similar exception.

The information that is necessary to complete ACA reporting (list here)  contains employee Social Security Numbers that are connected with medical plan enrollment details.  For this reason, the data necessary to complete ACA Reporting must include PHI and thus the HIPAA and HITECH Compliance rules come into effect.

These rules require many various things, including the following:

  • Employers must enter into a Business Associate Agreement with any vendor they share PHI to in order to complete ACA reporting.
  • Once the vendor (payroll company in this case) comes into contact with the PHI, they have responsibilities to encrypt and safeguard this information.
  • Any communication that includes PHI (emails, etc) must be sent encrypted in order to ensure compliance
  • Once the payroll company receives the data, they must maintain all other HIPAA and HITECH compliance items regarding how the data is accessed and stored.

….So one quick question you can ask yourself is, “Did I sign a Business Associate Agreement with the payroll company I hired to do my Affordable Care Act Reporting?”.  If the answer to that is No, then you might have a problem.

This link is a blog article from the American Institute of CPAs that you might find helpful on this topic. (link here)

If you are curious how we handle HIPAA Compliance for our clients, you can learn more here.

Uncategorized

ACA Affordability Safe Harbors must work for Everyone in a Class …

Posted on by ACA Reporting Service

The IRS regulations for ACA reporting require an employer to show that they offered the ‘right type of plan’ at the ‘right type of cost’ or else face penalties.  This means that an employer must have offered minimum essential coverage and minimum value coverage at a cost no greater than 9.5% of the employees household income.

Problem!  When you hired an employee you didn’t hire their whole household, so how are you to know what that number actually is?  To deal with this issue the IRS allows for employers to make assumptions on what the household income is for an employee.  It is important to note however, the Affordability Safe Harbor MUST work for everyone within a class of employees in order to use it.  Lets take an example …

Example:  The employer has a class of hourly employees that they are applying the rate of pay safe harbor for affordability purposes.  There are 100 employees in this class.  The safe harbor works for 99 of the employees but does NOT work for 1 person.  This safe harbor cannot be used for ANY employees in this class.  Instead, line 16 of their form 1095-C would simply be left blank and the IRS would use the final, actual household income of the employee to determine if a penalty could apply.

Of course for our clients, we perform all of this analysis on their behalf.  If by chance you used a different vendor for reporting and need assistance, we can assist you through our consulting services.

To see specifically where this information and guidance comes from, you can visit this link here to see the Federal Register Vol.79, No.29.  On page 57 of this document you will find the following language:

(i) Conditions of using an affordability safe harbor. An applicable large employer member may use one or more of the affordability safe harbors described in this paragraph (e)(2) only if the employer offers its full-time employees and their dependents the opportunity to enroll in minimum essential coverage under an eligible employer-sponsored plan that provides minimum value with respect to the selfonly coverage offered to the employee.  Use of any of the safe harbors is optional for an applicable large employer member, and an applicable large employer member may choose to apply the safe harbors for any reasonable category of employees, provided it does so on a uniform and consistent basis for all employees in a category. Reasonable categories generally include specified job categories, nature of compensation (hourly or salary), geographic location, and similar bona fide business criteria.  An enumeration of employees by name or other specific criteria having substantially the same effect as an enumeration by name is not considered a reasonable category.

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1095-C Code Calculator Released

Posted on by ACA Reporting Service

The most confusing portion of the entire Affordable Care Act employer reporting comes to bear when considering the lines 14, 15 and 16 for form 1095-C.


There are nearly 100 various logic combinations to create the codes necessary for the IRS reporting to be completed correctly.  To assist employers and organizations in checking the validity of the logic of these lines 14, 15 and 16 of form 1095-C, we have created a calculator.

Here is how it works … Simply select the codes below for lines 14 and 16 below and then press ‘search’.  You will then see the full logic as to why certain code combinations work or do not work.
Click here to load this Caspio Online Database.

Uncategorized

ACA Affordability Safe Harbors must work for Everyone in a Class …

Posted on by ACA Reporting Service


The IRS regulations for ACA reporting require an employer to show that they offered the ‘right type of plan’ at the ‘right type of cost’ or else face penalties.  This means that an employer must have offered minimum essential coverage and minimum value coverage at a cost no greater than 9.5% of the employees household income.

Problem!  When you hired an employee you didn’t hire their whole household, so how are you to know what that number actually is?  To deal with this issue the IRS allows for employers to make assumptions on what the household income is for an employee.  It is important to note however, the Affordability Safe Harbor MUST work for everyone within a class of employees in order to use it.  Lets take an example …

Example:  The employer has a class of hourly employees that they are applying the rate of pay safe harbor for affordability purposes.  There are 100 employees in this class.  The safe harbor works for 99 of the employees but does NOT work for 1 person.  This safe harbor cannot be used for ANY employees in this class.  Instead, line 16 of their form 1095-C would simply be left blank and the IRS would use the final, actual household income of the employee to determine if a penalty could apply.

Of course for our clients, we perform all of this analysis on their behalf.  If by chance you used a different vendor for reporting and need assistance, we can assist you through our consulting services.

To see specifically where this information and guidance comes from, you can visit this link here to see the Federal Register Vol.79, No.29.  On page 57 of this document you will find the following language:

(i) Conditions of using an affordability safe harbor. An applicable large employer member may use one or more of the affordability safe harbors described in this paragraph (e)(2) only if the employer offers its full-time employees and their dependents the opportunity to enroll in minimum essential coverage under an eligible employer-sponsored plan that provides minimum value with respect to the selfonly coverage offered to the employee.  Use of any of the safe harbors is optional for an applicable large employer member, and an applicable large employer member may choose to apply the safe harbors for any reasonable category of employees, provided it does so on a uniform and consistent basis for all employees in a category. Reasonable categories generally include specified job categories, nature of compensation (hourly or salary), geographic location, and similar bona fide business criteria.  An enumeration of employees by name or other specific criteria having substantially the same effect as an enumeration by name is not considered a reasonable category.