The MBPA wants to ensure that the agent community is given the right tools and information to get you and your clients through Health Care Reform. The MBPA is pleased to present Health Care Reform Connect™ to help you and your clients navigate reform.

 

Highlights of Health Care Reform Connect™ include:

• LIC coursework and discounts.
• You can email healthreformanswers@michbusiness.org for quick, accurate answers to your complex questions for your clients and MBPA members. Experts from across the country are available to MBPA agents.
• Webinars and workshops to address complex issues like SBCs, W2 reporting, and tax penalties/credits, along with timely reform updates to help you and your clients prepare.
• Reform presentations and educational/compliance tools are available for you and your clients.

 

Let us Make Your Business Better, contact us at: phone 888-277-6464, fax 586-393-8810, www.michbusiness.org or email info@michbusiness.org.

 

These services are available to MBPA members through the agent community. Ensure you write your Blue Cross business with the MBPA with Sponsored Plan Acronym AL. MBPA’s “AL” has your back during reform.

The MBPA & MFBA and, FSI of Western Michigan are providing you the opportunity to enroll in a self study pre-licensing course for the Life Insurance Counselor designation. The State of Michigan requires that an independent agent be a licensed Life Insurance Counselor if they bill and receive consulting fees from clients. Click Here for details on MBPA’s program with FSI West Michigan Click Here to obtain registration information and our discounted program fees.

 

Our service team is ready to help you at 888.277.6464.
 

 

The Michigan Business and Professional Association (MBPA) and its sister group, the Michigan Food and Beverage Association (MFBA),  make it priority #1 to keep you up to date on the federal healthcare law and how it affects you, your business, and/or clients. Today the Michigan House Health Policy Committee, when given a second chance to approve a state based exchange, rejected that opportunity. The Speaker of the House made a statement today that establishing a state based exchange in Michigan will not happen this year, but has potential in next year’s session.

As a refresher, in the state-based healthcare exchange, Michigan would be allowed to participate in essentially twelve different areas, making decisions on what is best for our region. In the state/federal partnership plan, Michigan is allowed to participate in two out of the twelve decision areas, which stated by law is Planned Management and Customer Service. Lastly, in the complete federal run plan, Michigan is not granted any decision making power. The continued inaction by the House of Representatives leaves no other choice but for Michigan to pursue a state/federal partnership, giving Michigan less decision making power.

Per the ACA, if Michigan choses now to pursue the state/federal partnership, it still has the opportunity in 2013 to switch over to a state based exchange, if approved by the legislature and governor. Also, per the ACA, the 9.8 million dollars in federal grant funding to lay the ground work for establishing a state-federal partnership is still available.

The 9.8 million dollars in federal grant monies in no way ties our state to any permanent healthcare decisions; it merely gives us much needed revenue to begin technical compliance, while saving our general fund dollars. The time to act is now. This is the last remaining option we have for Michigan to maintain some control over decisions made in regards to our healthcare.

If you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact our government relations team by phone at: 586-393-8800 or by email: BBochniak@michbusiness.org
 

To help members reduce their costs, the Associations are providing complimentary services such as Section 125 Plans and Summary Plan Descriptions (SPD) documents to all dues paying members in good standing.

 

The adoption agreements are now compliant documents reflecting ALL the Health Care Reform Law changes as of January 2013. These documents are FREE to our members…Effective 5/1/12, the cost to non-members is $50 each.

 

New Summary of Benefits Coverage (SBC) Option:

• Simply send us your clients SBC and MBPA will make a combined SPD/SBC customized document available to all Association Members who have BCBSM insurance through MBPA or MFBA.   
• MBPA will create a combined document in its original DOL mandated form with no alterations, as permitted pursuant to the DOL final regulations.
• MBPA will issue this combined document with a letter containing clear disclaimers about differences in distribution requirements for SBC’s and SPD’s, consulting their own legal counsel, etc… 

 

NEW Material Modification Sheet Available:

• Now Available for Summary Plan Description by request. Please contact the Membership Service Team at 888-277-6464 or info@michbusiness.org 

 

What’s Different about MBPA/MFBA’s Summary Plan Descriptions?

 

The Employer Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) guidelines make it mandatory for all businesses with 2 or more employees to provide employees with a Summary Plan Description. We continue to take a leading role in informing and helping our members meet their obligations under ERISA.

 

Types of benefits covered by Summary Plan Descriptions include: Medical, Long Term Disability, Short Term Disability, Life/AD&D and freestanding Dental/Vision.

 

• The MBPA SPD is a comprehensive document that satisfies the all Department of Labor (DOL) requirements for SPDs.
• The MBPA SPD can be tailored to cover all of an employer’s employee benefit plans, and is not limited to only insured medical or medical/vision bundled programs. 
• The MBPA is essentially a “wrap plan SPD” under which an employer can combine all of its benefits into one plan and one plan document for ease of administration and for purposes of DOL reporting requirements (e.g. Form 5500s) for those employers subject to such reporting.
• The MBPA SPD can be used for both insured and self-insured benefits. 

 

Section 125 Document:
The Section 125 Plan has a separate adoption agreement from the Benefits Wrap SPD adoption agreement. The Benefits SPD adoption agreement is one compliant document rather than creating 5 different forms for different types of plans.

 

For Section 125s: 1) Download the adoption agreement from our Agent Pavilion; 2) complete it IN WORD FORMAT and return it to us at info@michbusiness.org with your complete contact information, 3) we will complete the materials and return them to you within two working days.

 

NOW, Two Easy Ways to Get Your Client’s SPD for Active Members:

     1) Let Us Do It For You:

• Access an SPD adoption agreement from our Agent Pavilion
• Complete it and e-mail it back to us IN WORD FORMAT at info@michbusiness.org, being sure to provide your complete contact information
• We complete and return the documents within two working days.

     2) Create Your Own On-Line (NEW):

• Go to our Agent Pavilion and click on Summary Plan Description on the main menu.
• Follow the instructions to create your client’s plan…..you can save it in your client’s ‘library’ for their/your future use. 

 

We look forward to continuing to provide you and your clients with the most up to date and easily accessible services in this important area.

 

If you have questions or are in need of assistance, please contact our Member Services Team at 1-888-277-6464 or 1-586-393-8800.