What's your waiting period and why?
Paige
153 Posts
One of our smaller divisions is inquiring as to whether they should shorten their waiting time--it is currently 60 days.
What are typical waiting periods for smaller companies (less than 20 employees)? And what's the reasoning behind a "waiting period"--making sure the employee is going to stay with the company, allowing time to process paperwork?
Thanks.
What are typical waiting periods for smaller companies (less than 20 employees)? And what's the reasoning behind a "waiting period"--making sure the employee is going to stay with the company, allowing time to process paperwork?
Thanks.
Comments
Our health/dental/vision has a 60 day waiting period. It used to be 90, but we shortened to avoid ees being forced into COBRA to avoid the 63-day break in service rule under HIPAA. The life and disability policies have a 6-month waiting period.
We use waiting periods b/c we have turnover issues. In addition, since so much of our benefits are handled in house, the admin aggravation of day one coverage would be an issue for us.
Just wondering, can any of the Forum members who work for employers in the medical/dental fields explain why costs are increasing so much more than inflation ?
Thanks,
Chari
Your letters to the carrier comment is interesting. I've always been told by the TPA that we cannot waive the waiting period if there is one, nor will the secondary carrier allow it.
It was our insurance broker who told us to have the owner write the letter and how to word it, in these cases. I am sure that our broker has some pull with the
right people in HMO/PPO/whatever.
Chari
In addition, last year Medicare cut tremendously the reimbursement level and our practice had to absorb a million and a half dollar cut in reimbursement. This means either prices go up to compensate or we see more patients (which we have more patients than we have room on our schedule now) or we cut expenses (which we did - cutting salary increases, always very popular, and layoffs of employees). Anyway....we may be facing more cuts if Medicare mandates another cut the first of the year, which they might.
Another problem is the price of drugs. If Medicare wants to mandate price control, I would suggest they target the drug companies and limit what they can charge for prescriptions. It's very sad when people have to choose between eating and taking their medications. We even have an indigent med program in our practice to try to assist these folks, but there are more of them than what we can supply.
This is just the tip of the iceberg, but may explain something about pricing in the medical field.
We have first of the month following employment for dental because I mail in the enrollment and it takes time to process. That is how the contract works with the carrier, didn't really have a choice.
As far as your original question...Employees are covered first of the month after date of hire, except for our cafeteria plan - first of month after 90 days, and our pension plan - after a year of employment.
While you didn't ask for it and I'm not an ERISA expert, (Note two disclaimers in the first twelve words!), I think you may be creating some liability by waiving the waiting period for some employees and not for others. You run the risk of some kind of lawsuit by all the other employees that had to wait the waiting period as well as coming under the scrutiny of the DOL. You might want to check that out.
Margaret Morford
theHRedge
615-371-8200
[email]mmorford@mleesmith.com[/email]
[url]http://www.thehredge.net[/url]
Thanks for your pointers. I agree with your logic. The owner does what he wants,
giving different employees different waiting periods. It may just be only a matter of time, like you said. Here at this factory, logic is in suspended animation on some issues.
Chari
An earlier response asked why Medical Inflationis so much higher than Inflation in general. I have been to numerous seminars with HMO CEO's and even they do not have a handle on costs.