If an employee willingly wants to switch from full-time status to part-time, is the employer still responsible for providing health insurance benefits because they were hired as full-time?
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If FT employee that goes to PT is eligible for benefits based on the lookback/stabiity period, etc. and we offer to continue their medical coverage, do we have to also extend coverage for the dependents or can we just offer to the employee and the dependents become eligible for COBRA?
That is a good question, to my knowledge, the general rule is if you have over 50 Full-time employees, if you offer coverage to the employee, you have to offer it to dependents as well. With small group plans, the plan generally will still have to make dependent coverage available, but the employer doesn’t have to pay for it.
What I don’t know is if that would count as losing coverage for the dependent and trigger COBRA eligibility. Or, depending on income, if this would allow for CHIP or a child-only marketplace plan at a lower rate, etc.
Sorry, I don’t have a final answer, but hopfully some of that insight helps. Maybe here you could even call DOL hotline and ask if that counts as loss of dependent coverage https://www.dol.gov/agencies/ebsa/workers-and-families/loss-of-dependent-coverage.
Does a COBRA qualifying event happen when an employee goes from a full-time position with benefit coverage to a part-time position with no benefits?
Yes, if you had employer coverage and then lose it, you qualify for COBRA. This is true whether you go elect to go to full-time to part-time or are terminated or not. https://obamacarefacts.com/questions/how-do-i-become-eligible-for-cobra/
I have medicare plan A and working full time. now i am planing to go p/t.
1. how long do i have to apply for medicare plan B?
2. Do I have to go to social security office to notify them about plan B?
3. And what is the right steps do i have to take to do everything right?
Thank you very much
Alla
As a rule of thumb you want to coordinate with Medicare as soon as you know you are going to lose your “creditable coverage” (the coverage that let you defer part B).
You can sign up while you still have employer-based coverage and then for 8 months after you lose it, but you want to avoid gaps in coverage, so best to act ASAP.
I’m needing to know since I’m at full retirement age due to the guidelines of Social Security, if I change my full time status with my employer to part- time do I have to not work for 13 weeks, loose my seniority? Then be rehired as a new employee. If so, why? Any information will be greatly appreciated!
This site is focused on healthcare related information, so I don’t really have the answer to this one. With that said, full-time and part-time are generally defined by the hours worked over time, your employment status shouldn’t change based on your hours worked, so I would not think it would impact seniority (in terms of how long you have been with the company) on paper. Seems like a question for your employer to me.
If my business dissolves and I start with a new name ans new EIN number with the same employees do I have to count their hours from pervious name when calculating who gets offered coverage in 2018?
That is a great question. I have new clue to be honest with you. I would have to look this one up. You might want to consult a professional in this case. An entity who sells small business plans can probably answer that question. You would be asking about “measurement periods.”
Clear as mud all of this ACA stuff. If I have an employee who started FT, denied our insurance, now goes to PT and looses coverage under their spouse, do they then get offered insurance if they are within the measurement/look back period? Would it be considered a life event?
That is not a simple situation. It would make sense logically that if the FT rejected coverage, then you shouldn’t have to provide coverage… That said, I don’t know the technical details of this one. I would start looking on the IRS and department of labor websites or would contact a tax / coverage professional in this case. Sorry we couldn’t provide a more specific answer.
If an employee is supposed to be working 30 hours per week and has been consistently working less, when can the employer change the employee to part-time status and terminate benefits?
Very bad writing! The first two sentences do not make any sense, nor are they connected to each other. ALSO, the presence of an apotrophe at the end of the word “employee”, in BOTH cases, is incorrect. You are talking about more than one employee – in other words, plural. Making a noun plural does not require an apostrophe, in fact, an apostrophe means something different – “possession”. As in, “the emplyee’s jacket is on the floor”. The jacket belongs to the employee (singular); one employee possesses a jacket. However, if you want to show possession by more than one employee, you will put the apostrophe AFTER the s which makes the noun plural, as in: “this is the employees’ lounge”. More than one employee possesses the lounge.
Next problem: “If you LOOSE coverage”. I think you mean to say, “if you LOSE coverage”. These are two different words!
Next problem: “In regards”. The correct phrase when referring to something is “with regard to” that thing.
Never use “they” or “Their” – use “s/he” or “his/her” or “he/she”. Their and they are incorrect in the context used in several sentences above
All good points. Some of the QA pages needed an edit but were missed due to the massive amount of QA pages. Thank you for taking the time to help. The current answer avoids the grammar errors (well most of them!) Still need to pass this to the editor for a final look! (UPDATE: Big fixes for this page, thanks for pointing this out, we have 1,000’s of pages to manage here!)
I am currently resigning from my full time job that I have worked at for 6 months. I was offered their health insurance, but am under the age of 26 and am therefore still covered under my parents insurance. I wanted to transfer from full time to per diem/PRN/as needed, and was told i would have to wait 3 months to begin working for the company again due to the affordable care act. I cant find any information about this anywhere and really would like to know where this law/rule is and if it actually applies to me. PLEASE HELP, thanks!
My husband is about to start school and go to part-time at his job. We were told we can’t cancel the insurance through his job. Then we were told by the insurance company that if he makes less that 30 hours they won’t take any money out. Well my husband just had a check of working only 14 hours and the health insurance was still taken out. How is this possible? I thought ObamaCare was supposed to help people, not hurt them. We have been made to have insurance or pay a fine. It just isn’t right.
I was a full time employee up until 9-1-15. I was dropped to part time because I did not meet the 30 hr/WK requirement following my company’s look back period. I generally don’t pick up my check stubs because I have direct deposit, but recently picked a check stub up from HR and saw that I am still paying for insurance $144/WK. YTD $3620. I have not used the insurance because I was told I had been dropped and I am unsure how long it was carried over. My employer mentioned a mandatory 6 month period after being dropped to part time, but was unsure of details. I have a feeling they are avoiding paying me back. How do I find out when my insurance was officially dropped?
Simple answer is, yes 6 months is the minimum. Your status as part-time and full-time can change month-to-month, but the requirement for employers to offer coverage is in 6 – 12 month chunks.
To fully understand see the following articles on measurement periods:
no, presented more questions than answers. It would be good to have answers such as:
if your employer uses the look back method, then….
if your employer uses the monthly measurement method then……
Thanks for the feedback. That is good thinking, i’ll put it on the to-do list.
I retired from Federal Government in September 2011. I have health insurance through my retirement. I taught as an adjunct professor from January 2012 through May 2015 – a part time position. From August 2015 to May 2016, I taught as a visiting – a full-time position. I declined the college’s health insurance because I have it via retirement. I want to return to an adjunct, but the college is citing a 26 week break in service. This thread of questions seems to say I can. Will you cite some official rule that allows me to return to an adjunct? Thanks.
Single payer anyone?
if you are a full time employee and decline benefits because the employee has medical coverage, is the employer still require to pay the non-benefited employee sick time taken off or KIN Care for your family members when the employee uses it?
Not sure, good questions. Maybe a reader will have the answer.
The answer above is not clear.
Is moving from Full-time employee to a part-time employee a qualifying event to buy insurance from someone else?
Yes, if moving from full-time to part-time results in the loss of coverage then you will qualify for special enrollment via healthcare.gov. I’ll double check the question and make sure it reads more clearly.
What if someone is under a Section 125 health care plan regulated by the IRS. If they go part-time from fulltime does that enable the employer to cancel the benefits?
I have just turned 65. I have Medicare Part B as my secondary insurance now. I would like to drop to part time. This means that the employer insurance will stop and Medicare will become my primary with some other supplemental. I am being told that I have to stop work and be unemployed for 13 weeks before I can start part time. This seems odd. Please advise.
I don’t see how that could possibly be true? When you lose your employer based coverage for any reason other than non-payment it qualifies you for special enrollment. That rule works for every major insurance type as far as I know. I’m at a loss.
Any new info on this topic. We have several employees that want to change to part time status. We want to make sure that we end their coverage properly.
Still haven’t found the defacto answer, but from what we have gathered:
1. Employees who work at least 30 hours per week or whose service hours equal at least 130 hours a month for more than 120 days in a year are considered full-time.
2. Employers choose their own lookback period to determine full-time status. http://www.acareview.com/2014/07/administering-the-look-back-measurement-method/ Google “ObamaCare lookback periods” for more information.
3. Employees have 60 days to enroll in a Marketplace plan after they lose employer coverage. An employer only gets a fine if an employee was supposed to be offered coverage and gets Marketplace coverage.
So given the above it would seem that having an employee’s plan end on the start of the next measurement period (payroll or the first) once they will not be working at least 30 hours per week or least 130 hours a month for more than 120 days. Giving it a month from the date they switch to part-time seems like a safe-bet as the employee couldn’t get Marketplace coverage at least until their plan ends. Again, this is unofficial advice. We are really hoping for an accountant to chime in with definitive answer or to find one ourselves.
Hi all – very interested in this topic as it has a lot of moving parts. I work for a large hospital in TX, and we have a number of folks contemplating the switch from full time to part time.
Our understanding from our attorneys is that we must continue to offer coverage for 3 months following the date of the status change. That ~90 day period also acts as a shortened initial measurement period for the newly-variable-hour employee, and at the end of those first three months, you must choose whether or not to continue offering coverage based on their average service hours per week during that 3-month transition period.
So, for example, if a full time employee switched to part time effective September 1, 2015, we must continue to offer coverage until November 30th, 2015. On December 1, 2015, we look back at the brief September 1 – November 30 measurement period, and if the employee averaged >= 30 hours per week during that time, we must continue to offer coverage. However, this is where our guidance starts to get more vague. We’ve been told that, in these situations, we must continue their measurement on a monthly basis (rather than the standard look-back method).
Continuing the above example, if the employee did indeed reach the service threshold from September 1 – November 30, we must continue to offer coverage for the following month, December 1-31. Whether or not we offer coverage the following January is dependent upon the employee’s average service hours per week during December. February 2016’s offer of coverage is dependent upon January 2016’s service hours, and so on.
Our guidance tells us to keep these employees on monthly measurement periods (following that initial 3 month transition period) “until the end of the standard measurement period in which the status change occurs”. Our standard measurement period runs from October 15, 2015-October 14, 2016, so it’s clear that we should keep the employee on the monthly method until October 2016. October 2016’s coverage would thus be decided by September 2016’s service hours. However, our administrative period would run from October 15, 2016-December 31, 2016, and the stability period is the following calendar year. Our guidance stops at the end of the standard measurement period, failing to instruct us as to what should be happening for the last 2 months of the year. If we’re to stop using the monthly method at the end of our standard measurement period (mid-October 2016), but we’ve been using it throughout the year to date, then what decides whether or not to offer coverage in November and December 2016? Also, what measurement period should we use to decide whether or not to offer coverage for the following stability period?
One line of thinking would tell us to continue the monthly method until December 31, 2016, and then for the following calendar year (stability period), use the previous standard measurement period (October 15, 2015 – October 14, 2016). However, I could also convince myself that we should use September 1, 2015 (date of status change) through October 14, 2016 (end of standard measurement period) as the measurement period this first time around. Using December 1, 2015 (end of 3-month transition period) through October 14, 2016 also sort of makes sense.
Sorry for the long post, but if you’ve read this far you can see how complicated this issue can get. I’ve not been able to find guidance anywhere on the IRS website or elsewhere, and as we all know the IRS hotlines are a maze that’s impossible to navigate, let alone get anything other than the most basic of information out of. If anyone has any thoughts, I’d love to hear them.
-Kyle, IRS Enrolled Agent
