Employer POC First Name> <Employer POC Last Name>

<Date of Notice>

Employer POC First Name> <Employer POC Last Name>

<Employer Name>

Employer Mailing Address 1>

Employer Mailing Address 2

<Employer City>, <Employer State> <Employer Zip>

RE: Renewing Your Health Insurance Coverage for Your Small Business on <Renewal Date>

<Employer’s First and Last Name>,

Welcome to DC Health Link! This notice contains important information about renewing your health insurance coverage for your small business. Your renewal will be processedthrough DC Health Link this year. The DC Health Link team has been working closely with our health insurance carriers on the renewal process, and <CARRIER NAME>has informed us that your policy is scheduled to be renewed on <RENEWAL DATE>.

If you want to keep your current coverage, you won’t need to do anything. We will renew you automatically in the coverage you are currently offering. You will begin receiving monthly invoices from DC Health Link, not your carrier.

If you work with a broker, your broker can do the renewal on your behalf. Brokers are able to manage your employee roster, make changes to your plan offerings prior to finalizing your plan offerings, and enroll employees once they have created an account on DC Health Link. If you would like to work with a broker and don’t have one, information about broker referrals is availableon DCHealthLink.com under Get Help  Find a Broker.

DC Health Link offers 136 different plans from Aetna, CareFirst, Kaiser Permanente, and UnitedHealthcare. This includes high-deductible and zero deductible plans, PPOs, HMOs, and POS products. Many small businesses that have purchased coverage through DC Health Link saved on premiums and were able to offer their employees a choice of plans. In fact, our current customers include the DC Chamber of Commerce, the Greater Washington Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, and the Restaurant Association Metropolitan Washington – all saved on premiums and improved coverage offered to their employees when they purchased through DC Health Link.

DC Health Link makes offering choice to your employees easy for you. Based on your budget you can select a contribution and level of coverage and your employees can select a plan from all carriers. You still would get only one bill even when your employees choose coverage from different carriers.

If you want to take a look at what DC Health Link has to offer small businesses, just go to DCHealthLink.com and create an account.Here is what you can do once you create an account:

• Review the health insuranceplans you offer your employees and how much youcontribute to their health insurance premiums.After you enter information about your business, you will be able to see your employees’ information as well as your plan offerings. If you do not see this information,your FEIN may be incorrect andyou or your broker should contact us right away at (855) 532-5465 if this occurs.
• DC Health Link has the information for all of your employees enrolled in health insurance as of February 2016. If you have any new hires, recent terminations, or other employees who are eligible but not currently enrolled, work with your broker to include these changes to your employee roster prior to finalizingyour plan offerings, so that these changeswill reflect in your estimated monthly cost.

After working with your broker to update your employees’ information, you can review your plan offerings, your contribution to your employee’spremiums, and select a reference plan which will fixyour costs. Your employees will also have until 13thof month prior to renewal date>, to make their plan selections.

We are excited to serve your small business in meeting your health insurance needs. If you have any further questions or need additional assistance, please do not hesitate to contact us at (855) 532-5465.

Please review the following attachments to this letter:

Attachment 1 – When to go to your Carrier and to DC Health Link

Attachment 2 – Creating an Employer Account Walkthrough Guide

Thank you,

DCHealth Link Small Business Marketplace Team

Attachment 1 – When to contact your health insurance company and when to contact DC Health Link

Attachment 2 – Creating your Employer Account on DC Health Link

1. Create your account

Go to dchealthlink.com and under Small Business click on “Get Started”.Enter the requested information for your company and click “continue”. You should see the information provided to us by the insurance company, including the 2016 equivalents of your current plan offerings and a list of your enrolled employees. If the system does not display this information, the FEIN entered may be different from what we have on file.Please contact us right away at 855-532-5465.

1. Update List of Eligible Employees on the “Employees” tab

The information uploaded from your health insurance company only contains employees and dependents that were enrolled 3 months prior to the start of your new plan year. At a minimum, you must offer coverage to all employees working 30 hours or more per week. The employee roster must include all full-time employees, not just enrolled employees. If these eligible employees are not currently on your employee roster you will need to add any eligible employees. If these employees do not choose to enroll in coverage, their waiver will still help the group reach the required minimum participation and reserve their rights for special enrollment periods throughout the plan year.

1. Review “Draft Renewal Plan Year” on the Benefits tab of your DC Health Linkemployer account.

Your draft renewal plan year is setup with the same selections you made for your current plan year, including plan offerings, reference plan, contributions, and family member eligibility. You can make changes to these selections for the upcoming plan year if you’d like by clicking the Edit Plan Year button.On DC Health Link you are able to offer plans in one of three ways, you can offer all plans from one carrier, plans in one metal level from all carriers, or a single plan. You have until the 5th of the month prior to your renewal plan year start date to finalize your plan offerings, see the deadlines chart,

Open Enrollment Dates

Please select your Open Enrollment dates early so your employees can maximize their time to review their plan options. Your open enrollment period must be completed prior to the 13th of the month prior to your renewal plan year start date.

New Hire Eligibility

Small Businesses joining DC Health Link can choose the coverage effective date for new hires from these options:

• First of the month following or coinciding with date of hire
• First of the month following 30 days after date of hire
• First of the month following 60 days after date of hire.

Premium Contribution/Dependent Coverage

You must contribute at least 50 percent of the cost of coverage for employees. When you select a “reference plan”, the financial amount of the contribution will be determined. You will select a percentage to contribute toward each employee’s and dependent’s cost to enroll in the reference plan. You are not required to cover or contribute to dependent coverage.

Plan Offerings

Please select from the following employee choice offerings to decide what plan(s) you will make available to your employees.

Note: If you offer two or more plans from a single health insurance company, you will be defaulted to offer all plans from that health insurance company to your employees.

Reference Plan

From your plan offerings you will select one plan to serve as your “reference plan.” Your contribution will remain fixed based on the percentage contribution set for your reference plan. Employees enrolling in any other available plan will pay the difference in premium to “buy-up” or “buy-down”. If you are unable to contribute at least 50 percent of the cost of single coverage, you will only be able to offer coverage through DC Health Link during a special annual open enrollment period as described below. For more information about reference plans, see here:

Minimum Participation

To obtain coverage, 2/3 of eligible employees must enroll in coverage or waive due to having other minimum essential coverage during the annual open enrollment period. All small groups must also have one non-owner employee enroll in coverage. If all three of these criteria are met, the group will be able to enroll in coverage. If a group is unable to contribute 50% to employee premiums or meet the 2/3 minimum participation rate, they may enroll during the exception period for January 1st coverage each year.

1. Publish your Plan Year

To finalize your plan offerings for your employees in the upcoming plan year, select the “Publish” button on the Draft Renewal Plan Year. Once you publish the plan year, your employees will receive a notice that they can come in to review the plans available to them. If you do not “publish” your plan year by the 5th of the month prior to your renewal plan year start date, your plan will be automatically published.

1. Review Employee Enrollments

After your plan year has been published, encourage your employees to enroll or waive coverage so you can meet the required minimum participation rate of two-thirds. At the end of Open Enrollment, you will receive a report of your employee elections, including a breakdown of employer and employee premium contributions. One non-owner employee must enroll for your group coverage for your group to be written.

• If you are choosing to offer the same plan(s) as were offered in the 2015 Plan Year AND your employees want to keep their current enrollment (including plan selection and enrolled family members), your employees will not need to take any action - we will automatically re-enroll them into the 2016 version of their current plan, which may differ slightly.
• If you want to enroll in coverage under your group, please follow the steps in this guide to access plan shopping,

1. Payment

Once your new plan year starts, all invoices will be sent from DC Health Link and all payments should be remitted to DC Health Link. Payments can be made online, over the phone, or via mail.