Searching for the best benefits administration software for companies large or small? You’ve come to the right place. Let’s take a look at how good benefits administration software does the heavy lifting for you when it comes to health reimbursement arrangements.
Finding the best benefits administration software for companies
There's a growing trend among business owners to forgo the traditional, one-size-fits-all employer-sponsored group plans and opt for a reimbursement model, sometimes called a defined contribution model or 401(K) style benefits. There are many rules and regulations surrounding health reimbursement arrangements, the details of which can change from year to year.
If you want to simplify and optimize your benefits through an HRA, then you need the right benefits administration software. Fortunately, there are specific HRA administration software and management platforms (like ours) that are designed just for this purpose.
With HRAs, employers can offer flexibility, cost control, and predictability, while employees enjoy portability and personalization. They simply choose an individual health plan that works for them, and the employer sets aside a set allowance each month.
Employees are then reimbursed on their paycheck, tax-free, making it a win-win situation for everyone involved.
The big plus? These HRAs are tax-free; no income tax, payroll tax or employer taxes.
Why you need benefits administration software
We get a lot of folks asking whether or not they can administer their own HRA. Our best advice? Don't even think about it. For one, since we are dealing with health insurance and employees' health, privacy is a big deal. Things could get pretty uncomfortable for everyone involved. Then there's the whole issue with the HIPAA Privacy Rule, which is another layer of protection for employees' private health information. It's also time consuming for business owners to keep up with the medical receipts, maintain all the health information in a secure way, and handle the paperwork that comes with it.
If you have a misstep, civil penalties can range from $100 to $50,000 per incident with no jail time to more serious offenses resulting in up to $250,000 in fines and 10 years in prison, especially if information was taken under false pretenses or disclosed on purpose. No thank you.
Have we convinced you? We thought so. Save yourself the energy and potential violation penalties and use a third-party administrator.
Peace of mind for you
There are many rules and regulations surrounding HRAs, the details of which can change year over year. You shouldn't have to keep track of this; the best benefits administration software for companies should have built-in, automatic updates to ensure compliance.
Your software should include the following features:
- Legal plan and summary plan description (SPD).
- A means of collecting and storing employees’ electronic signatures.
- Privacy features that ensure the company does not view employees’ protected health information (PHI).
- ERISA compliance.
- Documentation regarding appeal requirements, notifications, and procedures.
- Continued coverage of dependent children up to age 26.
- Automated notice requirements for employees’ eligibility and annual allowance.
About our benefits administration software
With our platform, setting up an HRA will be a walk in the park. We'll handle all the accounting and legal legwork, take care of on-boarding each of your employees (or clients), and make tax time easy and painless. We do this through innovative tools that make this process as simple and intuitive as possible.
Our platform makes reimbursing your employees simple and easy. It will save you time and money, and provide you peace of mind. The platform navigates users through:
- what to reimburse - health insurance premiums and/or qualified medical expenses (the list is long!!)
- waiting periods
- start dates
- and provides legal plan documents, employee onboarding, receipt tracking, compliance monitoring, and tax reporting.
We’ll help enroll employees, too
Take Command is the only HRA administrator that also has an individual insurance platform to help employees choose plans to work with their HRA. There will be a lot of questions from both you and your employees, and we're here for it.
Our passion is to make health benefits enjoyable for you and your employees.
We will be closely involved during the initial setup process as well as your employees' onboarding. We'll also be readily available for any support you need as you're on our platform.
Automatic tax-reporting and compliance for benefits administration software
This one's really important. We take care of compliance, notifications, and reporting every step of the way. We also keep our ears to the ground for regulatory changes coming your way that might affect your HRA.
- Legal Plan Documents
- Employee Insurance Verification
- IRS & Other Deadlines
- Receipt Tracking & Storing
- Regulatory Change Monitoring
- HIPAA and Privacy Compliance
Next steps
Is your company or client looking for the best HRA software? Chat with our team with any questions you may have about these tax-friendly benefits or check out our QSEHRA or ICHRA Guide for more information on setup processes, requirements, and rules.
This post was originally written in 2022 and has been updated in 2023 to reflect all of the exciting changes in the world of HRAs.
