BCBSNC- COBRA Changes Effective May 1, 2012

As of May 11, 2012 BCBSNC’s contract with Ceridian to administer Federal COBRA services will end and BCBSNC will begin to handle this internally for all groups by May 1, 2012. Currently with Ceridian, group administrators are required to notify them when a member loses coverage & Ceridian in turn sends a packet to the member notifying them of their COBRA rights. If the member elects COBRA coverage, they are billed by Ceridian, the group administrator must notify BCBSNC to get the member back on the group bill, & Ceridian reimburses the group for the member’s premium. In addition the group administrator initially needs to notify BCBSNC of the termination for the member so they are taken off of the bill as an active employee & if they elect COBRA they are put back on in a two step process. This creates a lot of extra work for the group administrator, who already more than likely handles multiple duties.

Hopefully with this change it will be much simpler for groups, members, & the carrier. Beginning in May, the process will go like this: member loses coverage, group notifies BCBSNC to remove member from active coverage on group, BCBSNC sends packet to member, if member elects they get billed by BCBSNC. The most important advantage for groups with this change is that they will no longer have to front the premium for the COBRA member on their group invoice & wait for reimbursement from Ceridian. BCBSNC will be billing the COBRA member directly, therefore taking the group out of the equation. This will happen at no cost for the groups. BCBSNC will bill the 2% admin fee to the COBRA member, just as Ceridian does. BCBSNC will be notifying current COBRA members with Ceridian of the change as well as mailing COBRA groups a list of their participants to make sure all is accurate. Existing COBRA members appearing on a group’s invoice will disappear once BCBSNC begins billing the member directly. For questions on this process, contact your BCBSNC agent or the BCBSNC COBRA service number at 1-888-694-7860.