Coming in March: Validation required for dependent health care
February 7, 2012 •
Is your spouse or partner, child or grandchild enrolled in your UC-sponsored health insurance?
Beginning in March, all faculty, staff and retirees who have family members enrolled in UC-sponsored medical, dental and/or vision plans will be asked to verify their family members’ eligibility.
UC Human Resources has selected Secova, Inc. to complete a project to identify ineligible family members to ensure compliance with UC’s Group Insurance Regulations and to fulfill UC’s fiduciary responsibility to its employees, retirees and the citizens of California.
Secova will also implement a system for verifying family member eligibility for new employees and when current employees add new dependents to their health insurance plans.
“While the majority of our people enroll only eligible dependents, previous random reviews have uncovered a percentage of people who either knowingly or unknowingly enroll ineligible people or fail to de-enroll dependents who are no longer eligible,” said Christopher Simon, director of systemwide HR compliance.
“It’s in the best interest of the University and our faculty, staff and retirees to be sure only eligible people are covered, ” Simon said.
In March, Secova will send faculty and staff with enrolled family members an information packet with a list of enrolled dependents and instructions for completing electronic submission of documents that confirm the dependents’ eligibility. Instructions for submitting documents via U.S. mail will also be included.
UC Human Resources selected Secova to administer the dependent eligibility review based on their price, state-of-the-art security and privacy procedures and commitment to customer service, including a call center, which is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
“Secova has tools, resources and expertise to help people locate hard-to-find documents,” Simon said. “They also had excellent recommendations from other universities who used them for similar projects.”
Employees will need to submit two documents to confirm eligibility of a spouse or domestic partner. The list of acceptable documents includes, but is not limited to, marriage certificates, California domestic partner registration, tax returns, bank account statements, UC’s Declaration of Domestic Partnership form (UBEN 250), and domestic partner agreements.
Financial information on tax returns or bank statements should be blacked out, as only the filing information or account-holder information is needed.
To prove a child’s eligibility, a birth certificate, adoption papers or court order for a legal ward are among the acceptable documents. Only one document needs to be submitted to verify a child’s eligibility.
More details about the family member eligibility review will be available on the At Your Service website in mid- to late February.
