ICHRA Offerings At Complete Payroll Solutions

Health Reimbursement Arrangements (HRAs) are a tax-free and cost-effective way to enhance your benefits package, and there are an increasing number of options available to employers today. The newest type of HRA is an individual coverage HRA (ICHRA).

If you’re looking to add an ICHRA to your program, you’re likely evaluating administrators to find the best solution for your needs. And if you’re here, that means you’re considering Complete Payroll Solutions.

Complete Payroll Solutions has been administering pre-tax health plans like HRAs for over 18 years. While that may make us a little biased when talking about HRAs, we also know that we’re not necessarily the right choice for every business.

To help you decide if an ICHRA from Complete Payroll Solutions could be a fit for your company, here we’ll discuss:

• What is an ICHRA
• Features of Complete Payroll Solutions’ ICHRA
• ICHRA costs at Complete Payroll Solutions
• Support for employers and employees

After reading this, you’ll know if an ICHRA through Complete Payroll Solutions is the best choice for your needs.

What is an ICHRA?

An ICHRA allows employers to reimburse their employees for individual health insurance premiums and qualified out-of-pocket medical expenses. Unlike a traditional HRA, your employees can use their ICHRA to purchase their own individual health insurance, typically through the Exchange.

This type of HRA requires less overhead than traditional group benefits and can be a less expensive way to offer employees more choice when it comes to their health benefits. However, there are certain requirements you’ll need to meet in order to be able to offer an ICHRA:

• You may not offer eligible employees a choice between an ICHRA and a traditional group coverage health insurance plan.
• You can leverage 10 different employee classes to structure benefit eligibility and allowance amounts; however, while different terms may apply for different classes of employees, the same terms must be offered to all employees within the same class.
• Participating employees and dependents must be enrolled in an individual health insurance plan or Medicare to participate in an ICHRA.
• You must have procedures in place to verify employee enrollment in an individual health insurance plan or Medicare.
• A written notice must be provided to eligible employees at least 90 days prior to the beginning of the plan year explaining key terms of the ICHRA.
• Eligible employees must have the option to opt-out annually and upon termination.

Features of Complete Payroll Solutions’ ICHRA

At Complete Payroll Solutions, we can help you offer an ICHRA to your employees by providing comprehensive administration services for your plan. These include:

• Developing and distributing summary plan descriptions
• Managing enrollment and setting up employee accounts
• Issuing debit cards
• Enabling self-service through a website or a mobile application
• Processing claims in-house 
• Certifying submitted expenses and handling reimbursements
• Performing annual non-discrimination testing 

In addition to easing your burden, we also assist employees in identifying the best individual health coverage for their needs. We’ve partnered with HealthSherpa, a certified partner of Healthcare.gov, to deliver an integrated online enrollment and support tool that helps your employees find quality, affordable health insurance.

Through HealthSherpa, employees can access all of the same plans at the same prices as those available at Healthcare.gov but with direct, personalized support to address any confusion when making their selection. This employee plan shopping, enrollment and support experience is included as part of our ICHRA solution.

ICHRA costs at Complete Payroll Solutions

Fees for ICHRA administration are generally on a per employee per month (PEPM) basis. The typical costs you’ll pay an administrator include a set-up fee of anywhere between $150 and $1,500. You’ll also pay $450 to $750 per year for annual administration plus a PEPM charge of $2 to $5.

Those costs are in line with what we charge at Complete Payroll Solutions for administration of an ICHRA: $250 for set up with a $550 base annual fee and a PEPM of $2. So if you have 10 employees, your cost would be $800 a year plus the one-time set-up fee.  

Support for Employers and Employees

At Complete Payroll Solutions, we will assign you a dedicated team of professionals who are knowledgeable about your plan and responsible for the day-to-day management of it to ensure compliance. These individuals are available Monday through Friday to answer any questions or help with issue resolution.

Our team can also provide participant support like open enrollment meetings for your employees as well as a direct phone line for assistance with the claims submission process, claims status, and the mobile or desktop application.

Is Complete Payroll Solutions the right administrator for my business?

An ICHRA is a flexible and cost-effective alternative to traditional group benefits. If you’ve read this far, you probably already know if Complete Payroll Solutions would be a good fit for your business. However, if you’re still unsure, our integrated ICHRA offering may be the right option for your business if you:

• Prefer personalized service from one dedicated team of representatives versus contacting a call center
• Are interested in additional support for your employees like assistance with choosing individual health coverage
• Are a payroll client and want integrated claims processing and reimbursements
• Want mobile technology that makes it easy to monitor activity
• Are looking for one-stop-shopping for administration, claims processing and insurance support

To learn more about HRA solutions or other pre-tax offerings that may be right for your business, read our next article on our pre-tax benefit services.