Compliance Health Survey

In a constantly changing regulatory environment, it is difficult for employers to ensure that their organization is compliant with the litany of different rules they are required to follow at the state and federal level. The Compliance Health Check is a premium feature designed for the employers to answer a series of surveys and get customized advice for their compliance needs.  

• Employers can take the initial survey for free and see recommendations as a "sample" for the overall module. 
• The Compliance Health Check is designed to help employers with ERISA, the Affordable Care Act and the Employer Mandate, COBRA, Medicare and a variety of other compliance-related topics.
• The survey generates the state-specific recommendations for NY, TX, FL, and NJ states.
• After the surveys are completed, the ER is presented with a variety of compliance recommendations and action items tailored to their organization.
• The employer will be given a detailed checklist for every action that can be taken to address the potential risk.

Time off Management

A new feature, Time-off management tool, has been added to the HR suite that provides employers the ability to create custom policies, and automate tracking, accrual balances, and adjustments. Employees can view their time-off requests, make updates, and request approval for time-off from anywhere, at any time. Some of the key capabilities are:

• Employers can create any number of time off policies and assign it to respective Employees
• Real-Time Dashboard
• Employees can request time off from anywhere, at any time with just the click of a button.
• Reporting manager will be notified about the request.
• Reporting manager can approve/reject the request and employee would be notified.
• Who's out information will be shown to employer and employee to see about the peers on leave and have an upcoming leave.
• The tool also offers a feature to import employee's current PTO balance.

Employee Communication

Uzio has introduced a new set of filters that can be accessed in the Employee Communication module.  These new filters allow brokers and employers to send out new, targeted communications to employees who need reminders about a pending action.  The new communication filters are:

• EOI Required
• Missing Account Info
• LSC not complete
• Forms not Signed

Additionally, the communication app has been enhanced by providing a way with an Employer to create their own custom templates as needed for their own purpose. Additionally, we have added a custom template so brokers or employers can send out their own custom email messages to employees.   This custom template can be edited and adjusted over time to fit your needs.  

STD/LTD Additional Buy up Coverage

Many employers provide eligible employees with disability (STD/LTD) coverage under a base plan  free of cost. Since each employee has different needs, employers can also offer employees the opportunity to purchase additional disability coverage.  Certain states have required that employers offer this type of buy-up coverage.  

Uzio now offers brokers and employers the ability to add employee-paid disability plans to their list of benefits that employees can enroll in.  

• Disability benefit categories have now been split into employer-paid STD and voluntary STD, and employer-paid LTD and voluntary LTD.
• Brokers can now select which employer-paid disability plans have a buy-up option on the platform.  
• Brokers would be able to set up which Voluntary paid plan can is a buy-up plan that can be offered along with the employer paid plan.  Brokers can also set up voluntary disability plans to offer alongside of the employer-paid disability plans, making the enrollment process for employees simple to complete.  

This will provide additional choice for the employees and give them the flexibility to enroll in the buy-up coverage above and over the employer-paid coverage. This will offer employees more options when electing their benefits, as well as the flexibility for brokers to set up plans that have additional buy-up options.  

Domestic Partner Eligibility Set Up

Uzio has added an enhancement to the benefit setup process allowing brokers to select whether or not employees can enroll a domestic partner. If domestic partners can be covered by the carriers that employees are enrolling in, then this option can be selected while the proposal is being created.  If the option to include domestic partners is selected, then employees will be given the option to add a domestic partner to their coverage while they enroll.  

Employee Rehire

Uzio has added the ability to rehire a terminated employee without having to delete them and add them back through the census.  After an employee is rehired, the employee will be treated similarly to a new hire, and they will be able to enroll in benefits again.  This new feature is quick and easy to use, which means you can save time knowing that the employee will be able to enroll in benefits themselves.  

Class Change Waiting Period

When an employee becomes first time eligible for the benefits due to the class change may need to serve the waiting period as per the carrier rules to get the coverage started. Uzio has made enhancement allowing Broker to set up the waiting period rules while reporting the class change event so the that if the waiting period is applicable for an employee for any newly eligible benefits then the system enables Broker to determine and apply the waiting period to derive the coverage start date. 

Business intelligence reports

 To facilitate a broker’s business operations, we made the following enhancements to our reports:

• Employee Information Change Report - Enrollment window and first benefit effective dates have been added in the report. This information will enable the Brokers to check the enrollment window of new hires along with when s/he will be effective so that they do not have to check any other report or look elsewhere in the portal for the same purpose.

  Additionally, whenever a dependent is getting added or dropped during LSC, that dependent will also be present in the "Dependent Details" column and will be highlighted as well so that to easily identify the dependent level changes to update in the carrier system.

• Book of Business Report - Lead vs Client Report has been replaced with the Book of Business Report. This report will enable Brokers to see the client status on the platform along with the client details.

Tactical Enhancements

Uzio believes in making continuous improvement to facilitate broker’s business operations and to make things easier to use for the users. Hence, we made certain tactical enhancements with this release:

1. Additional Benefits Enrollment Period Extension: Brokers would be able to extend the special open enrollment for the newly offered benefits in a proposal.
2. Premium features are auto enabled for the system created test client. This will allow the broker to use the premium features so they can better understand what is being offered in each of the modules.  
3. Decision Support System - Employer DSS (cost-modeling tool): The employer DSS feature is offered to brokers for free if they have subscribed to the HR suite or premium suite.  
4. Custom Fields Deletion: Brokers and employers will now be able to delete custom fields.  However, the system will not allow deletion if the custom field is in use either in the class criteria or at the employee level for the details storage.
5. Replacement needs to be provided for direct reports when terminating a reporting manager: When a reporting manager is terminated, the user who is terminating them will need to select a new reporting manager for that employee's direct reports to start reporting to.