We added new fields to the employee record within our COBRA portal. These additional fields will help improve OCA’s invoicing and billing logic as well as prepare for a future enhancement to deliver “834 files” to carriers. The newly added optional fields are listed below with a description of its impact on OCA’s invoicing logic.

Employee Hire Date: The employee “hire date” field has been added as an optional field. If the date is left empty, OCA will begin billing based upon the creation date of the employee record. If the date is provided, OCA will begin billing based upon the new hire date. 

Termination Date: The employee “termination date” field has been added as an optional field. The employee termination date should only be updated if an employee is waiving coverage and is no longer a COBRA eligible employee. For example, no COBRA qualifying event occurred. The employee waived coverage and enrolled on their spouse’s plan(s). 

Rehire Date: An employee who was previously terminated and is rehired or an existing employee who previously waived coverage and is now re-enrolling in coverage again would exist within OCA’s employee records. When this occurs, the “rehire date” field will be used to update existing employee records and to identify if and when OCA should begin invoicing again.

OCA’s online participant portal and mobile app now provide self-service unlock tools for participants whose accounts are locked due to three invalid password entries. Prior to this release, participants were only able to access a locked account by contacting OCA. This enhancement introduces a faster and more secure way to unlock accounts, using a one-time passcode (OTP) sent via email or text message.

We are excited to launch a new High-Yield interest option that enables  employees to optimize the value of their HSA account with OCA. With this new option, HSA account holders can take advantage of higher interest rates by choosing to have their HSA cash balance held in a High-Yield deposit account, backed by Pacific Life Insurance Company. The OCA HSA account is a powerful tool to help your employees save money on healthcare expenses, and whether they’re a spender, saver, or investor*, they can now choose to get even more value from their HSA contributions.

On March 29, 2023, the IRS issued FAQs Part 58 in which they announced that the end of the national emergency for purposes of the Outbreak Period is May 11, 2023, which means that the outbreak period will end July 10, 2023 (60 days after May 11, 2023). Bottom line, health plans will stop disregarding the Outbreak Period from the applicable ERISA, COBRA, and HIPAA timeline calculations as of July 10, 2023.

The IRS has announced for 2024, Health Savings Account (HSA) account holders will be able to contribute significantly more to their accounts. For those with self-only coverage, the annual limit will be $4,150 vs. $3,850 in 2023. HSA owners with family coverage will be able to contribute up to $8,300, up from $7,750 in 2023.

The IRS recently issued a memorandum (TAM 202317020) that reiterates the acceptable methods of claims substantiation (adjudication) – manual substantiation and auto-substantiation – and the necessity of pursuing pay-and-chase mechanisms for all non-adjudicated claims prior to including them as W-2 employee income.