Enrollment of Benefits

When a new employee actually enrolls in any health plan it is necessary to send the employee an Initial COBRA Notice.  The initial notice communicates to plan participants their COBRA rights and obligations.  The initial notice must be sent to the covered employee and spouse, if any, when plan coverage first begins.

When you enroll an employee (and dependents, if any) into the TCO/BPM system, the Initial COBRA Notice is automatically generated and mailed via First Class mail to the employee’s home address.

To add benefits to an employee in the TCO/BPM system simply follow these steps:

1.      Log into the system using your Group Name, User Name, and Password.

2.      Click on Accept to acknowledge the general disclaimer.

3.      Click on Administer Company

4.      Click on Participants

5.      Click Search Employee (You may search by any criteria listed or leave blank)

6.      To the left of the employee’s name click on View.

7.      Click on Core Benefits (or, Ancillary Benefits as appropriate)

8.      Click on Add (for each applicable plan)

9.      Click on the Plan selected (if multiple plans shown)

10.  Click on Tier Choice (if multiple tiers shown)

11.  Click on Submit

Once all of the benefit elections are made for this employee (both Core and Ancillary, if any), it is time to add the employee’s dependents, if any, to the system. From the last screen above you simply click on Employee, then click on Dependents, and then click on Add New Dependent.  You repeat Add New Dependent until all dependents (spouse and dependent child(ren)) are entered.  Pay particular attention to the Enrollment Date to make sure it is accurate.  The Enrollment Date is the effective date of their coverage under the plan.

If you need to add dependents after you have already logged off the system, follow steps 1 through 6 above, click on Dependents, and then follow the instructions in the above paragraph.

Your benefit elections will show up in the system immediately and an email is simultaneously sent to you acknowledging the elections.  You should retain this email acknowledgement for your records.  This Initial COBRA letter and the COBRA Qualifying Event Notice are the two most important of the numerous COBRA notices. Please see the section entitled “Failing to Comply” to see how important it is to enroll benefits in a timely fashion.