03 Nov Critical compliance changes for next year: An open enrollment checklist

Keeping up-to-date with health care is one of our top priorities. From HR Morning, here is a comprehensive list of everything you need to know so far going into 2018.

As HR pros immerse themselves in negotiating plan changes for this year’s open enrollment, it’s critical to keep these new 2018 regulation changes front and center.

To help, here’s a checklist of changes you’ll need to be aware of when making plan-design moves:

1. Mental Health Parity reg changes enforced

Beginning January 1, 2018, plans that require “fail first” or “step therapy” could violate the Parity Act’s “non-quantitative treatment limitation” (NQTL) rules. Under the NQTL rules, plans can’t be more restrictive for mental health/substance abuse benefits than they are for medical/surgical ones.

Here’s an example of a fail-first strategy: Requiring mental health or addiction patients to try an intensive outpatient program before admission to an inpatient treatment if the same restriction doesn’t apply to medical/surgical benefits.

2. New Summary of Benefits and Coverage (SBC) template

Under the ACA, plans were required to start using the new SBC template on or after April 1, 2017.

For calendar year plans, that means this is the first enrollment with the new template, which includes new coverage examples and updates about cost-sharing. You can find more details on and instructions for the new form here: bit.ly/temp544

3. Women’s preventive care

The Women’s Preventive Services Guidelines were updated for 2018 calendar plans to include a number of items that must be covered without any cost-sharing. The list includes breast cancer screenings for average-risk women, screenings for cervical cancer, diabetes mellitus and more.

See the original article here.

Source:

Bilski J. (17 October 2017). “Critical compliance changes for next year: An open enrollment checklist” [Web blog post]. Retrieved from address https://www.hrmorning.com/critical-compliance-changes-for-next-year-an-open-enrollment-checklist/