Local business owners may wonder if an in-house QSEHRA would be feasible or even a good idea. What is the answer? Not truly. Setting up your own QSEHRA, without an HRA manager, can be difficult and taxing. From the compliance needs to the managerial concerns. You must remain certified, or else the Internal Revenue Service may consider your HRA void as well as tax all your compensations (both for you and your employees). Here are some more reasons why professionals don’t recommend it.
Let’s evaluate: What is QSEHRA (Qualified Senior Employee Health and Safety Assessment)?
The Certified Tiny Company HSA, also called Local Business HRAs, a specific payment plan, or 401(K) style benefits, is a type of HRA designed to assist local business owners pay for health insurance for their teams- often a major obstacle due to rising costs and engagement rates.
The QSEHRA is a health and wellness compensation plan that allows companies (with less than 50 employees) to set aside a fixed amount of money each month for staff members to use to purchase private medical insurance coverage or to pay for clinical expenses, all tax-free. The QSEHRA allows companies to offer local company medical insurance benefits in a tax efficient way, without the headache of implementing a team plan. Staff members could also select their preferred strategy.
The basic idea is that companies should compensate their employees only when they incur wellness expenses. No pre-funding is done. The company retains the funds if employees do not submit invoices or require healthcare.
Why self-conducted QSEHRAs aren’t the best idea
Personal privacy is an important concern. This is even before we discuss the HIPAA component (more on this below). You would have access to personal information about your employees’ health and wellness as a business. It could be unsettling for everyone involved.
Documents: It is a hassle for businesses to maintain up-to-date with medical invoices, taxing and to store them in a secure way. This also includes the important documents that are included. Internal revenue service requires services to keep documents for approximately seven years. You’ll need a secure method to keep your employees’ medical invoices as well as their PHI for around 7 years. It’s not enough to keep invoices in shoeboxes.
HIPAA COMPLIANCE:This one is big. Local business HRAs were developed to be used by businesses with fewer than 50 employees, so they do not fall under the majority of government regulations that affect health insurance plans for larger companies. HIPAA is still applicable to you. HIPAA has some components that are still incorporated into local HRAs. Why? All health insurance plans, including those reimbursed via a QSEHRA should adhere to the HIPAA Privacy Policy regardless of the size of the company. This policy was created to protect clients’ PHI.
Extra concerning PHI
PHI is accessible in all kinds of communication, including hard documents, emails, and phone conversations. Here are some “real world” situations that could occur when an employee sends a confirmation to certify clinical expenses to a business.
- A physician’s visit can be expensive
- An MRI check
- Results of Laboratory Work
- Phone documents
- Description of benefits
- A physician may be contacted via email to ask about a particular medicine
- Medical professional Consultation Organizing Card
- Reference documents
- Documents related to wellness insurance claims
- Benefit info or settlements
- Social security numbers, clinical documents numbers, telephone numbers, medical insurance recipients numbers, etc.
It is important to pay attention.
QSEHRAs as well as HIPAA compliance
Here are some policies that will help you stay HIPAA certified:
- It is the responsibility of a firm to ensure that strategy documents and software are up-to-date and certified according to the latest modifications.
- The PHI of employees cannot be used to make occupational decisions. For example: You cannot terminate someone based on their general health information.
- It is essential to have a system in place that protects all sensitive information at any time.
- HIPAA-certified treatments and documents should be included in your HRA agreement file for your local company. You must also detail all actions you plan to take to ensure that your employee’s PHI remains protected.
- HIPAA privacy officers must be designated in the business to protect sensitive information. Personnel management should ensure that no one other than the designated personal privacy police officers can access staff members’ PHI.
Charges for HIPAA Non-Conformity
These civil penalties can range from $100 up to $50,000 without prison time, to more serious offenses that could result in a $250,000 penalty and ten years behind bars.
If this was not enough to deter, the state could impose additional charges for the same offenses. You are responsible even if it was an accident or you didn’t intend to disobey. It is not safe here.
Take Command with QSEHRA Management
Why risk it when your employees’ privacy is at stake and also costly offenses are possible? Take Command’s QSEHRA system will do the heavy training for you.
Our system creates documents with HIPAA-certified language, updates them instantly and also handles QSEHRA needs such as assessing files that contain protected health information. We will also take care of the audit as well as legal research, onboard each member of your team, and make tax time easy and painless. No more will you need to worry about bills or establishing health insurance plans.
It’s only $15 per month for each worker. This is an excellent deal compared to some of our competitors. You can call us if you have any more questions or check out the management section in our QSEHRA overview.
