With upcoming health care reform changes coming this fall,employers are facing a couple of major changes, and they shouldstart preparing for these new provisions now.

In particular, the Summary of Benefits and Coverage requirement is expected toprovide some preparation challenges to employers, says KatyStowers, advisor and general counsel of FirstPerson, an employeebenefits firm in Indianapolis. Under the new SBC requirement,employers must distribute the SBC document to all employees who areeligible to participate in an employer plan for those beginningOct. 1 and beyond.

However, employers cannot simply look at the plan year rulebecause these summaries must be distributed on the first day ofopen enrollment.

“Because employers are often just making their benefitsdecisions right before the enrollment period, there's a prettyquick turnaround time for preparation for these, so they're readyto be distributed the first day,” Stowers says. “It's really thetiming that makes this most challenging.”

Fortunately for employers, the Department of Labor recentlyreleased a list of frequently asked questions and revealed that anyemployer that conducts online enrollment for health benefits ispermitted to distribute the SBC electronically in conjunction.

“This lightens the burden in terms of getting these SBCsprepared and distributed, especially for employers with multiplelocations or a lot of employees who telecommute, so that was somewelcome news we had recently.”

Coming this fall, there will also be a new formal auditinitiative of all entities that are covered by the Health InsurancePortability and Accountability Act, Stowers says. These audits arespecifically designed to check for compliance on mobile technologyplatforms, such as email, laptops and smartphones. With these newchanges, it's especially important for employers to start preparingemployees who deal with this type of information.

To do so, Stowers recommends that employers appoint a privacyand security officer who relays those procedures to other employeeswho are exposed to HIPAA-secured electronic information. Whilethese new regulations do not need to be communicated to the entireemployee population, those handling HIPAA-secured informationshould be well-trained on the new audit initiative.

“Communicating these compliance requirements needs to be acontinual process and something employers should always berevisiting,” Stowers says. “I would say now is definitely a time tostart preparing for employers that have not been diligent in thisrespect. They want to start now because substantial penalties doattach to noncompliance.”

As 2014 approaches, it is also important that employers startcommunicating the upcoming changes with employees now, Stowerssays. With health care reform being such a hot political issue,there is a great deal of misinformation out there, and how much anemployer communicates with its employees could determine thesmoothness of the health care reform transition.

This article was originally posted at BenefitsPro.com, a sister siteof Credit Union Times.