University asking employees to verify dependents’ benefit eligibility
As health care costs rise, process will help ensure viability of CU’s group benefit plans (Jan. 5, 2010) Like many employers challenged by rising health care costs, the University of Colorado is launching an audit to verify the eligibility of dependents who are covered by employee benefit plans.
As announced by Payroll and Benefit Services (PBS) during spring’s open enrollment for the 2009-10 year, plan participants must review the university’s eligibility requirements and determine whether their dependents meet requirements for coverage by health, dental and life insurance plans.
All benefits-eligible employees will receive a letter later this month explaining the process. In early February, all plan participants with enrolled dependents will receive a verification packet from Secova, an independent third party that the university is partnering with for the confidential review. Participants will be asked for industry-standard documentation – such as birth certificates, marriage licenses and/or tax returns (without financial information) – verifying that dependents meet university eligibility requirements.
“Although we believe the majority of enrolled dependents meet university eligibility requirements, there might be some instances when a plan participant mistakenly includes an ineligible dependent,” said Mark Stanker, assistant vice president of PBS. “When this happens, each of us shares the cost of covering the ineligible dependent in our programs.”
Plan participants who realize they have ineligible dependents are asked to voluntarily drop them from coverage in a timely manner. Penalties may be avoided by removing ineligible dependents from coverage by Feb. 28. After that date, if the university learns that a plan participant has knowingly enrolled an ineligible person as a dependent, the university may act to recover costs for the ineligible person’s health care and/or benefit claims.
Dependent eligibility audits are increasingly common among employers, as they seek to rein in health care costs. Other major universities including Stanford, Ohio State and Michigan recently completed similar dependent verifications. According to a recent Aon Consulting survey of large employers, 46 percent of organizations conducted such verification by 2009, and 20 percent plan to do so in the future.
“The data show that for large employers like CU, about 5 percent to 12 percent of dependents do not meet eligibility requirements, and each ineligible dependent costs an employer approximately $2,000 to $4,000 annually,” Stanker said. “With nearly 18,000 dependents on our plans, assuring the university is paying only for eligible dependents is important, even more so in this economy.”
Note: An Official Announcement was sent via e-mail this morning from Danielle Zieg which contains more information regarding this audit.
Congratulations to Jeffrey Beall for his recent publication:
Beall J. Metadata for Name Disambiguation and Collocation. Future Internet. 2010; 2(1):1-15.
http://www.mdpi.com/1999-5903/2/1/1
Outstanding student worker recognized
As one of four members of the UCD Ethics Bowl team, Suraj Chaudhary, one of our Computer Commons student workers, participated in the Rocky Mountain Region Ethics Bowl on Saturday, November 21. The team swept undefeated through all four rounds of competition, qualifying them to compete in the national Bowl, to be held in Cincinnati in February. The team was coached by Prof. Gabriel Zamosc and Prof. Candice Shelby of the Philosophy Department.
In addition, Suraj submitted his paper entitled “Assumptions in Wittgenstein’s Idea of Ethics,” to the 2010 Southwestern Undergraduate Philosophy Conference and was accepted for presentation at the conference on February 13th, 2010 in Edmond Oklahoma.
The competition for both of these events was very intense and we are very proud of Suraj, who has been with us for several years now. Please join me in congratulating him for his impressive demonstration of skills and knowledge.
In case his name looks familiar, Suraj was also one of our 2006 Read, Succeed at Auraria Library Scholarship winners and he is the brother of our own Niraj.
Research Behind the News is Back!
Thanks to Eric Baker and Gayle Bradbeer for working to keep this favored feature, originally started by Davette Zinik and Elaine Jurries, alive. To check out the latest, visit the Auraria Libary homepage or go directly to the blog: http://aurariaresearchnews.blogspot.com/
Submissions for News@1100 Do you have something to share in News@1100? Please, submit items to Marical Farner by 12:00 p.m. on the second and fourth Mondays of the month.
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