Beginning Jan. 1, Affordable Care Act reporting requirements will get underway for businesses, opening the floodgates to potentially billions of dollars in penalties nationally for companies that fail to comply.
To help them navigate their way through the intricacies of the ACA, Cross Insurance, one of New England's largest independent insurance providers, will host a free seminar for businesses with 50 or more employees at 1:30 p.m. Thursday at Atlantic Wharf's Fort Point Room at 290 Congress St. in Boston.
"We don't think most businesses are aware of the reporting requirements," said Keith Ferdinando, Cross Insurance's senior vice president of benefits. "The myth is Obamacare is going to go away now that the Republicans are going to have control of Congress. But they're going to have a very difficult time taking away health care from millions of Americans who have just received subsidized insurance. Employers need an action plan."
Jon Hurst, president of the Retailers Association of Massachusetts, said his group will educate its businesses about the reporting requirements.
"But we have 4,000 members," Hurst said. "I think it needs to be a joint effort with state and federal officials, brokers and local chambers of commerce."
The reporting requirements and penalties will be particularly onerous, Hurst said, for small businesses.
"The system is rigged against them because they aren't self-insured," Hurst said. "Larger companies that have human resource departments and legal staff (to handle the reporting) — they're doing pretty well. We just hope there's some leniency with how the law is phased in."
As of Jan. 1, all businesses will be required to track whether they are offering their employees insurance and whether it's affordable — that is, whether it costs 9.5 percent or less of each employee's gross income, said Bill Fields, president of Health Plan Solutions in Boston and Mashpee.
If it costs more, companies will be required to notify their employees that they can sign up for health insurance through the state's Health Connector website and receive a subsidy, Fields said.
In addition, businesses with 50 to 99 employees will be required to fill out two forms: one for employees, noting month by month whether they worked full time, whether they were offered health insurance, whether they accepted it, and how much it cost; the other for the IRS, compiling that information for all of the company's employees.
Businesses with 100 or more workers will be required to fill out all three forms and could face one of two penalties: Companies that choose not to offer health insurance will be subject to a $2,000 yearly fine per full-time employee; and businesses that offer insurance that isn't affordable to all of their workers will be subject to a $3,000 yearly fine for each employee who can't afford the insurance, Fields said. Beginning in 2016, both penalties also will apply to businesses with 50 or more workers, he said.
Fields estimated that fewer than 30 percent of companies understand the penalties or the reporting requirements, even though they will take effect in one month.
"As a result, the fines are going to put some companies out of business," he said.
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