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Employee Maintenance: COBRA

What is COBRA?​

  • The Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1985 (COBRA) is a federal law that requires most employers to provide employees, spouses and dependent children who lose group health benefits due to a qualifying event with an opportunity to continue group health coverage for a limited period of time.

  • An employer that is subject to COBRA must offer continuation coverage only when group health plan coverage ends (or would end) due to a qualifying event. COBRA includes the following specific list of seven events that can be considered qualifying events if they result in a loss of group health plan coverage: Termination of a covered employee’s employment (other than for gross misconduct) A reduction of a covered employee’s hours of employment A divorce or legal separation from the covered employee The death of a covered employee Ceasing to be a dependent child under the terms of the plan The covered employee’s entitlement to Medicare Employer bankruptcy (for retiree plans)

Overview​

Use the Employee Maintenance > COBRA tab to record information (Events) about a terminated employee's activities regarding their COBRA elections.

Before working with this tab, the company must have an active full level COBRA service in place. (Master Company Setup > Services). If there is no service, this notation is displayed on the employee level COBRA sub tab.

Working with the Employee Level COBRA Tab​

To add a new COBRA event, click the New (*) Button in the upper right corner of the tab.

The "Please choose a code" Dialogue Box is displayed. The box contains a Drop List of built-in Event Codes.

Select the appropriate Event Code and then OK.

The Cursor is moved to the Event field on the COBRA Events Sub Tab.

Field NameInformation
Event DateEnter the date of the qualifying event.
StatusSelect the appropriate status from the provided Drop List options.

The entry cannot be saved without populating the Event Date and Status fields.

Documents Sub Tab​

Use of this Sub Tab is optional.

Click the New (*) Button to add documents to this tab.

A File Explorer window is opened.

Navigate to the file, select it then click Open.

An entry is added to the grid on the Documents Sub Page. A code is assigned to the entry based on the Event Type from the COBRA Events Sub Tab.

If the COBRA Event is Termination, the Code is TermiN

The N is replaced with a one (1). It is incremented as new Documents are stored (Termi2, Termi3, etc.).

If the COBRA Event is Death, th Code is DeathN. The N is replaced with a one (1). It is incremented as new Documents are stored (Death2, Death3, etc.).

This logic applies to all twelve COBRA Event codes.

Edit Notes : Click to display a free form text box. Use the box to enter additional information about the document.

Load/Update : Use this option to update a newer verion of an existing document.

The following message is displayed to allow the user to replace the document or not.

View : use the View option to display the attached Document

Benefit Elections Sub Tab​

This Sub Tab is not used at this time.