Updated Group Master Applications
May 16, 2011

Our Group Master Applications (GMA) have been updated for July 1, 2011 sales and have been posted to the Agent Website. There are slight revisions, some sections are re-titled, and new benefit options have been added to the form.

Please familiarize yourself with a new field on page one, added to meet federal healthcare reform. It asks about the percentage of plan participants who are literate only in the same non-English language (percentage varies by group size).

• There is a requirement for small and large group health plans under Federal health care reform that requires carriers to provide certain enrollees with culturally and linguistically appropriate notices for internal and external appeals processes.
• We must obtain this information directly from our groups. It is the group administrators’ responsibility to certify the need, or lack thereof, for translation services for their plan’s participants under Federal health care reform
• We understand this may not be information the group administrators currently have on file. It may require the group to first ask employees the question, compile results and then provide Regence with a response. However, this information is similar to other eligibility information gathered for new employees, so groups may want to incorporate obtaining this information into their current process.
• This information will allow us to provide the language support services as required by this statute. This support may involve translating information regarding appeals rights or understanding how a claim was paid and can be done both verbally using phone translation services or in written translation of appeals notices.
• Be sure to mark the field as N/A if it is not applicable to your group.

Please disregard the option for employees to enroll themselves on line, this statement will be removed at our next update.

To view the new forms, please click on the link titled “Forms”, up above in the Producer News banner.

Should you have any questions, please contact your Sales team.

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