The Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) requires employment-based group health plans to extend health care coverage to the children of a parent-employee who is divorced, separated, or never married when ordered to do so by state authorities.
Generally, a State court or agency may require an ERISA-covered health plan to provide health benefits coverage to children by issuing a medical child support order. The court order forces coverage under the plan, even if the employee is not interested in obtaining plan coverage for the child.
Under ERISA §609(a), the group health plan must have procedures established to determine whether the medical child support order is “qualified”. Such an order is referred to as a Qualified Medical Child Support Order (QMCSO).
In addition, a State child support enforcement agency may obtain group health coverage for a child by issuing a National Medical Support Notice (NMSN). A NMSN is treated like a QMSCO if the group health plan determines it to be qualified (i.e. it’s appropriately completed by the agency).
Under the terms of the law, child support or other court orders which do not meet all the qualification requirements, are not “qualified” and plans are not required to provide any benefits to child, unless the deficiencies are later corrected.
Once a medical child support order has been determined to be a QMCSO, then the plan administrator must act in accordance with the order’s provisions as if it were part of the plan. (Qualified Medical Child Support Orders, Q/A 1-25)
Thus, plan administrators must comply with general QMCSO requirements when processing and administering benefits. For instance:
- If the employee is eligible to participate in the plan, the child must be covered.
- If, the employee is not enrolled in the plan, but as a condition for covering his dependents, the employee must be enrolled, the plan must enroll both.
- If the employee named in a medical child support order has not satisfied the plan’s generally applicable waiting period, the administrator should have procedures in place so that the child will begin receiving benefits upon the employee’s satisfaction
of the waiting period. - If a group health plan does not provide any dependent coverage, an order may not require a plan to provide dependent coverage when that option is not otherwise available under the plan
- A child covered pursuant to a QMCSO is a “qualified beneficiary” with the right to elect continuation coverage under COBRA, if the plan is subject to COBRA and if the child loses coverage as a result of a qualifying event.
Employers are required to have written procedures for assessing and responding to QMSCOs/NMSN notices and may be subject to sanctions or penalties imposed under State law and/or ERISA for failure to respond and/or for non-compliance with a QMSCO/NMSN notice.
For additional information, check out:
The Compliance Rundown 