Last year on May 4, the Agencies, Department of Labor (DOL), the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), and the IRS issued a joint notice on providing additional relief due to the National Emergency. Former President Trump declared the National Emergency on March 13, 2020, in response to the fast-spreading Coronavirus. As a result, the Agencies provided an “extension of certain timeframes for employee benefit plans, participants, and beneficiaries affected by COVID-19." Thus, the “Outbreak Period” began. 

The Outbreak Period, which was March 1, 2020, through 60 after the end of the National Emergency, ...

In Florida, the Law firm of Wensel, Fenton, and Cabassa, P.A. files class-action lawsuits when terminated employees are not provided a COBRA notice that strictly follows the Model Notice

put out by the DOL. On June 18, 2020, one such class-action suit was filed by a former southwest airline employee who stated the Notice received was incomplete and confusing. The Complaint also outlined that the COBRA Notice was not provided within 44 days of termination.

The Complaint alleged the Plaintiff experienced a qualifying event on May 8, 2019, and that she did not get her COBRA Notice until August 6, 2019....

In January we hosted a webinar and published a subsequent blog, How the Pandemic Affects FSAs and Dependent Care, and typical for this Pandemic, we now have updates for some of that information. Things are changing rapidly and e are working very hard to ensure you have the most current information possible, at all times.

Dependent Care

During the webinars we presented a few weeks ago a question kept coming up over and over:

"If an employer allows a roll-over of unused DCAP funds from 2020 to 2021 as allowed by the CAA-2021, does this reduce the maximum...

I am not sure how many blogs have started with, "________ is SO hard to understand," but here we are again. COBRA is complicated and even more so when discussing Medicare. Thankfully, Medcom's Senior Legal Counsel, Michelle Barki, helped us out this week with a feature article from Medcom's quarterly Benefits Leader newsletter. If you find this article helpful (which I have no doubt you will) then subscribe to our email list at the top of the site!!

Now, on to Michelle's article:

Understanding COBRA and Medicare

Medicare, Eligibility, Entitlement