How HRAs affect premium tax credit eligibility

Mardy Gould • May 13, 2024

With a stand-alone health reimbursement arrangement (HRA), employers can reimburse employees tax-free for their healthcare costs. Unlike traditional group health insurance , HRAs allow employees to choose individual health coverage that meets their needs and use their employer-contributed monthly allowance to pay for more than 200 out-of-pocket medical expenses , including individual plan premiums.

Employees shopping for individual coverage can also get help with the cost of their insurance premiums through premium tax credits. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) created premium tax credits to discount individual health plans purchased on public health exchanges. If employees qualify for tax credits and are offered an HRA by their employer, there's some extra coordination that must happen.

How your employees must account for their premium tax credits will vary depending on what type of HRA you offer. In this blog, we’ll walk you through how premium tax credits work with stand-alone HRAs.

Employee burnout: what it is and how to prevent it

By Mardy Gould • May 24, 2024
Employee burnout has become an epidemic in today’s modern workplace. So much so that the World Health Organization (WHO) officially recognizes it as an “occupational phenomenon.”1 While many used to consider mounting workplace stress an individual employee problem, these days, it’s become an employer’s responsibility to prevent burnout before it hurts productivity and business performance—not to mention your employees’ physical and mental health. Luckily, you can prevent burnout from affecting your workforce in several ways. This article will explore the causes and signs of employee burnout and the steps you can take to create a positive work environment where employees feel safe from toxic stress levels.

Form 720 and PCORI fee FAQs

By Mardy Gould • May 23, 2024
If you're a small business owner, you may have heard of the acronym PCORI and the fees that come with it. But what is PCORI, and how does it apply to your organization? Under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), sponsors of self-insured health plans must pay a fee to fund the federal Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI). PCORI is an independent organization the ACA created to conduct research to help healthcare consumers make better decisions for their specific needs and outcomes. It also performs research related to clinical effectiveness. Employers offering a self-insured medical reimbursement health plan, such as a health reimbursement arrangement (HRA), must pay this fee by July 31 each year via Form 7201. This fee was initially set to expire in 2019, but Congress extended it through September 30, 20292, due to the Further Consolidated Appropriations Act of 20203.
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