How long before COBRA?

HR in NY

We have an employee who has been out on Worker's Comp for 15 weeks. His FMLA is done. We are making him pay his portion of the health insurance (25%), but how long do we have to pay our portion? When can we offer COBRA and not have to carry the burden of paying the 75% of the premium the company pays? Thanks as always for your help.

irenesmsaclaims

I am not an expert on Workers' Comp., but when the 12-week FMLA expired, the protection of keeping the benefits in force went with it. Unless I'm missing something about WC, you could terminate the benefits (due to reduction of hours as a qualifying event under COBRA) at that 12-week point, and offer COBRA, where he has to pay the whole premium plus 2% if you do that. The other thing is, what was he promised with respect to the health benefits as a time frame?

HR in Okla

I'm not a WC expert either, but I have done exactly what irenesmsaclaims said on two occasions. Most recently I had a person who was two weeks from FMLA qualifying and brought a doctor's note saying she needed to be off a month. I put her on Personal Leave, two weeks later on her one year anniversary, sent her an FMLA notice. After she had been off about 6 weeks total, she called to ask about filing a WC claim. (She'd never mentioned her condition as potentially work related before, and I don't buy it, but that's another story. The WC claim was filed eventually and is still in process.)

As soon as 12 weeks FMLA was exhausted, I sent a COBRA notice based on reduction in hours. Also told her she is now considered an "inactive" employee. In Okla. you can't terminate someone with a pending WC claim simply because of absence from work. So we wait...