While the U.S. House of Representatives is moving quickly to repeal the Affordable Care Act, companies that provide health care to their employees shouldn’t plan to make drastic changes any time soon, according to an executive with a local IT company that specializes in ACA compliance.
Anna Silva, a principal with Louisiana-based SyncStream Solutions, says the changes lawmakers in Congress are discussing will take at least a couple of years to implement, assuming they pass, which means employers will have plenty of time to prepare for whatever eventually comes out of the nation’s capital.
“The safe bet is to stay the course at this point,” Silva says. “If this passes, there’s still a question of when it will go into effect, and then regulations have to go out and a comment period to reach final regs. The ACA implementation took years, so this will, too.”
What’s more, whatever does come out of Congress will likely be as complex as the ACA and require that some data be reported to the IRS about the nature and amount of tax credits being provided by employers to their employees. In other words, while the new system will be different than the existing one, it may not be as drastically different as some may suppose.
“It’s hard to imagine there won’t be some kind of reporting requirement,” she says. “They’re just tax credits of a different color so you’re still going to have to report it.”
SyncStream was founded three years ago to help employers navigate the complex regulations governing the ACA and to electronically file the massive amounts of documentation required by the law. In that short amount of time, the company has grown from a staff of three employees to more than 40, with offices in Baton Rouge and Metairie. It has also created its own proprietary software that it private labels to other companies, mainly payroll and benefits administration firms.
“Payroll administrators have a lot of data but may not want to spend time developing a solution to the complexity of the ACA,” Silva says. “In a lot of cases, it’s easier for them to come to us.”
Not surprisingly, SyncStream has been inundated with calls since Congress began debating the ACA. The company has also been featured in media interviews, like a recent column in Forbes.Â
Silva says her advice to worried employers is simple: Stay informed and stay in compliance with the existing law.
“There is so much uncertainty,” she says. “But what we’re finding is that most companies want to just maintain their compliance and not put their company at risk, and that is the smart bet.”
—Stephanie Riegel
