Small Business Knowledge: What is ERISA?

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What is ERISA?

ERISA stands for the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, and is enforced by the Department of Labor’s Employee Benefits Security Administration. It is a federal law that sets minimum standards for pension plans in the private sector.

As a Business Owner, Why Should I Care About ERISA?

While ERISA does not require any employer to establish a pension plan, it does require those that do to meet certain minimum standards including:

  • Providing participants with information about plan features and funding
  • Establishing minimum standards for participation, benefit accrual, and funding
  • Accountability of plan fiduciaries (trustees)

Is your company in compliance? You should be. In addition to penalties business owners may face for violating compliance, ERISA also gives participants the right to sue for benefits and breaches of fiduciary duty. But, before compliance issues scare you aware from offering attractive benefits that will help your employees (and future employees) set aside money for retirement, contact a professional. Compliance is sometimes scary, but it doesn’t need to be.

A Happy Medium?

For businesses engaged in a PEO relationship, expert help with risk management and compliance protects the client from costly fines and lawsuits. PEOs also assume much of a business’s risk through the co-employment relationship.

For businesses that are not engaged in a PEO relationship, Employer Solutions Plus provides benefits and human resource management services such as wage and hour compliance, ERISA, FMLA, COBRA, HIPAA and ADA options. As it relates to pension plans, we provide business owners with all the necessary information they need to make better employee benefits decisions, and most importantly, stay in compliance.

To learn more about PEO options, or employee pension plans and ERISA compliance, contact us today.

HIPAA: A Quick Checkup for Medical Practitioners

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If you’re a medical practitioner, you’re probably well aware of HIPAA, but you may not be up to speed on every aspect surrounding HIPAA compliance.

HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) protects the privacy of individually identifiable health information. HIPAA also comprises of the HIPAA Security Rule, which sets national standards for the security of electronic protected health information and confidentiality provisions of the Patient Safety Rule, which protects identifiable information being used to analyze patient safety events and improve patient safety.

Medical practice owners or employees who are delegated to manage compliance need to be fully aware of the HIPAA policy and procedures, since a single violation of compliance can result in fines capable of crippling your cash flow. These necessary yet time-consuming compliance checkups are a crucial component to any business.

Can you or your compliance-responsible employee answer the following 5 questions?

  1. What kind of personally identifiable health information is protected by HIPAA privacy rule?
  2. Who do HIPAA security and privacy regulations apply to? Is it just you, the practitioner? Or your entire office including administrative support and nurses?
  3. A patient of yours was transferred from your facility to the hospital 4 days ago and the hospital just called requesting the patient’s information. Are you permitted to release patient information to the personnel at this hospital over the phone?
  4. How do copies of patient information need to be disposed of?
  5. Are you permitted to access your own medical record through the office computer?

If you missed even one of these questions, it may be time to engage a professional employer organization (PEO). In order to stay up to speed on compliance and human resources management, you may need to dedicate up to 25% of your day if not more on non-patient activities like administration!
Worst of all, HIPAA is just one area of compliance amongst 180 federal laws that the Department of Labor (DOL) administers and enforces.

Many medical practice owners choose to engage a PEO for the sole purpose of ensuring employer compliance. In addition to the many other benefits PEOs provide, PEOs protect – against costly lawsuits, against compliance failure, and against preventable workplace mistakes/accidents.

To learn more about HIPAA, compliance, and other employment-related administration and management solutions, contact Employer Solutions Plus. We’ll help you determine which areas of your business require the most attention, and whether or not those areas need to be managed by a PEO.

 

Wage & Hour Compliance in Tampa

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Are you a Tampa business owner foggy in the field of wage and hour compliance? You’re not alone.

The United States Department of Labor Wage and Hour Division (WHD) oversees the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), which establishes minimum wage, overtime pay, recordkeeping, and youth employment standards affecting employees in the private sector and in Federal, State, and local governments.
But, some states have minimum wage rates higher than those outlined in the FLSA, while others have minimum wages rates that are the same or less than those outlined in the FLSA.

Did you know:

Nationwide: Non-exempt workers are entitled to a minimum wage of not less than $7.25 per hour. Overtime pay at a rate not less than one and one-half times the regular rate of pay is required after 40 hours of work in a workweek.

State of Florida: Minimum wage is increased annually based upon a cost of living formula and is currently $7.67 per hour with a minimum wage of at least $4.65 per hour for tipped employees, in addition to tips.

Employees who are not being compensated fairly have the right to file a complaint about an employer’s alleged noncompliance with lawful minimum wage requirement as well as inform any person about the employer’s alleged noncompliance. Employee rights are protected under the State Constitution, but, who’s protecting you, the employer?

Many Tampa businesses rely on the support of a professional employer organization (PEO) when it comes to wage and hour compliance. In addition to HR administration, benefits, payroll, and insurance, PEO clients gain increased protection from ever-changing wage and hour compliance.

Partnering with a PEO gives you the advantage of working with a well-informed team of HR professionals each and every day, and PEOs often bring more streamlined and integrated technology to the table, for improved wage and hour reporting. Many PEO’s also provide EPLI Insurance to help protect employers against wrongful lawsuits pertaining to wage and hour disputes.

To learn more about PEO and wage and hour compliance solutions in Tampa, contact Tampa-based Employer Solutions Plus at 727-698-6207.

What are Section 125 Tax Savings Plans?

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As a small business owner or HR professional, you can only know so much! Navigating the ins and outs of tax compliance can be a full time job in itself, which is why Employer Solutions Plus offers clients assistance in Section 125 Tax Savings Plans.

What you need to know: A Section 125 Plan provides tax savings for both the employer and employee by reducing employee benefits from gross salary prior to the calculation of federal income and social security taxes. This is allowed under Internal Revenue Code Section 125 – which is where this plan gets its name! You may have also heard this plan referred to as a “Cafeteria Plan” because employees “choose” from a selection of two or more benefits – similar to the cafeteria concept, where visitors choose from different foods.

This plan provides employee participants an opportunity to receive certain benefits on a pre-tax basis. A Section 125 Plan is a separate written plan maintained by an employer for employees that meet the specific requirements of, and regulations of, section 125 of the Internal Revenue Code (IRC). Do your employees meet the specific requirements of the IRC?

How we can help: Employer Solutions Plus can almost immediately tell you upon consultation if your company and employees qualify for such a plan. If your company does qualify, the written plan must specifically describe all benefits and establish rules for employee eligibility and elections – another area Employer Solutions Plus can help with.

Qualified benefits include: accident and health benefits, dependent care assistance, group-term life insurance coverage and HSAs (Health Savings Accounts). If you currently have a plan that only offers employees a choice between taxable benefits it is not considered a Section 125 Plan.

For more information on Section 125 Tax Savings Plans or Cafeteria Plans, contact Employer Solutions Plus today.

How Law Firms Stay in Compliance

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As law firms grow, so do the complexities of managing employees. Hiring more employees equates to more time spent making sure the practice is in compliance with the ever-changing list of employment laws. Managing compliance can interfere with the precious time needed to focus on your practice or an important case. You’re very busy practicing law and defending your clients, but who is taking care of you?

Law firms that want peace of mind surrounding compliance choose to engage in the co-employment relationship, which also happens to save them time and money! In the co-employment business model, the PEO’s job is to ensure compliance, but it’s also in their best interest to perform this service as best as possible.

Why? Well, under the co-employment relationship, employees are co-employed – which means that the PEO is sharing the risk of managing your employees. If your firm is slapped with an EPLI claim, this becomes the PEOs situation as well.

PEOs’ best practices include HR and compliance audits to prevent as many claims as possible. At the onset of a PEO relationship and periodically thereafter, the PEO will perform a complete audit of your firm’s policies and procedures as it pertains to hiring, firing, promotion, demotion, workplace safety, employee training, and more.

It is not uncommon for PEOs to also provide law firm partners or hiring managers with management training courses to review best practices, employee relations, employee communications and various employment-related laws that need to be abided by.

Best of all, PEOs provide ongoing HR support inside and outside of the office, especially concerning the management of faulty claims. If an employee of yours makes a claim, it is up to the PEO to fight that claim in court… PEOs manage and fight all types of claims such as unemployment claims or workers compensation claims.

For more information on PEOs or to determine if a PEO is the right solution for your firm, please contact us.