OKESC AND OCSS VIDEO WEBINAR - SHOULD I ENROLL THE CHILD?

Barbara Perkins: Good afternoon and welcome to the Oklahoma Child Support Services and the Oklahoma Employer Services Center webinar. 
Our topic for today is "Should I Enroll the Child?" 

I'm Barbara Perkins and I'm your presenter for this afternoon. And let me remind you of a couple of logistics that we have on our webinar. The first thing is make sure everyone can hear the webinar well. Please either mute your phone or press star six to mute your phone. 

Now if you would like to ask a question, then just press star six to unmute your phone. Now please do not place the call on hold. This will create a beeping noise that all participants will hear and they won't be able to hear the webinar or the questions and answers that are being provided. So, at this time would you please go ahead and mute your phone and we'll get started. 

Okay the first thing is that this particular workshop does have RCH credits available from the American Payroll Association. If you are interested in obtaining those credits, please contact joshkahoe@ou.edu. Just send him an email and let him know that you would be interested in that and he'll be able to get that set up for you. 

Our phone number today is 1-888-987-7970. The conference ID is 502072.Now if you're hearing me on the phone, you've already gotten that far, which that's great. But if you have someone who's logged in to the webinar itself for the Powerpoint but they're not on the phone and you're in contact with them, you might let them know what the phone number is. 

Now this is the fourth in the series of webinars that we have been presenting this year. We are in the process of getting the previous webinars posted on the website. And that's www.OKESC.org. Now we anticipate that we'll have all four of them on the website for 2012 very shortly. I believe that the first two are already out there and the third one is in the process of being edited to be posted. 

So you'll be able to get to this information later on and can refer back to it. We will also be sending out this Powerpoint by email to all of the attendees, or enrollees. And we'll have some written materials to be available as well. Okay, so that's pretty much the logistics. We'll jump into our material. 

I'm your presenter for this afternoon, Barbara Perkins. I'm a Programs Manager for the Current & Medical Support section at Oklahoma Child Services. What that means is that I've been around for... this is my... I've been with Child Support for 19 years. And I am the contract monitor for Oklahoma Employer Services Center. 

So I'm the liaison from OKDHS that provides information and support to the Employer Services Center. So we're going to start off with, on "Should I Enroll the Child" is that, as an employer, you may receive quite a few documents about your employees and their dependents related to child and medical support. 

So how do you know what should be done when you receive these documents? Well the first thing when you look at the document is find out if the person that is listed on this document an employee, a former employee, or has this person never worked for your company? Second thing is that you want to figure out, well who sent this document to me? 

Is it something that they're supposed to send to me? Is this coming from the correct person or entity? Should I have received this document? What is it telling me to do? And now that I understand what it is telling me to do, what should I really do with it? 

So we're going to break down each one of the questions and go through them in detail. Okay, so the first one is that is this person who is listed on this document an employee? So they're a current employee proceed with doing whatever you need to do with the document. Now, if they're not an employee, say they're a former employee or they've never been an employee, please send a response back to the Oklahoma Employer Services Center with that information. 

Because on the medical support we are only looking for medical support of current employees. If it's a former employee, they're not going to be eligible to provide insurance for their child unless they have COBRA benefits. So that's the one provision of if you have a former employee, the National Medical Support Notice may still apply, but that's only if they have COBRA benefits. 

Okay, our second item is who sent this document to you? When we're talking about the National Medical Support Notice there's only a small list of entities that can send that out. Well the first one will be Oklahoma Child Support Services and that's the most likely source that you're going to have for receiving documents talking about medical support. And the main one is the National Medical Support Notice. 

You could also receive the National Medical Support Notice from a child support program from another state. Probably not one from another country, though they may have an equivalent document. And there are also some tribal nations that might have child support programs. And they are also authorized to send out the National Medical Support Notice. However, private attorneys are not. 

Now they may try to send you the court order itself and you would want to read through that and see if there is an action that you need to take that the Federal Office of Child Support Enforcement only authorizes the IV-D programs - they mean the child support programs - to be able to send out the National Medical Support Notice. 

So if you see one that has a private attorney's name on there as the issuing agency, that's one that should raise a red flag because they do not necessarily have the authority to issue that document and to direct you to enroll the child in insurance. So, that's your first hurdle is figuring out, did the person who sent this to me are they the right person to be able to send it? 

Okay, our next item that we are going to take a look at is should you have actually received it? And what you are doing here is figuring out, is this really a Qualified Medical Child Support Order? In our webinar in May, we talked a little bit about this, about what's a "qualified order." 

And this means that this is a court order that's issued by the court. This notice is based upon the court order. And there are certain pieces of information in there for you to be able to determine, is this an action that I'm supposed to take? One is that it has to have the issuing agency's name. 

And on our previous slide we had just talked about that there are only certain agencies that can send out the National Medical Support Notice. You would want to be able to identify the employee that this is about. So the employee's name needs to be on there. Now, we, Oklahoma Child Support Services, we often include the social security number and the address of the employee when we have that. 

But if for some reason we do not have that information, we will at least have the employee's name on there. I mean our hope is to have all of that information on there but the basic requirement is that we have to have the employee's name. If you have difficulties being able to identify the employee just based on the name, please contact the Employer Services Center for more information and they will assist you and help you figure out is this the same person as your employee or is this a different person? 

Now of course the employer's name, the name of the company, is listed on there. The child's name and address, the type of coverage required by the court order, and this could be a whole list. Or it could be listed as any and all coverages available. So say you have major medical available and vision and dental. And what is marked is all coverages that are available. 

Well then all three of those that need to... you would need to enroll the child in all three. However, if the court order specifies only major medical, then that is the coverage that you would want to enroll the child in. There's a possibility that with two parents that the court could order one type of coverage from one parent and a different type of coverage from the other parent. 

The court is going to look at what is in the best interest of the child. 
What are the needs of the family? And it could be that one coverage is available from one parent's employer and a different type of coverage would be available from another. Then the last thing that you want to look for of should you have received this and whether this is a Qualified Medical Child Support Order, is the period for when the order applies. 

This is found as what is the effective date of the order? What's the earliest time period that you should be looking at? Now the way that Oklahoma Child Support Services sends out the National Medical Support Notice is that it will not go out to you until the effective date of the order. 

So we take care of that on the front end of you shouldn't receive a future effective date on one of these notices. Other states, they may or may not follow that. They may send you one that is effective two months from now. So that's one thing to look for of, "Do I do this now or do I wait until the order is effective?" Okay, our next item that we look at is what is the document directing me to do? 

Well, the first thing that you want to do is read the document and see what are the provisions in there? Unfortunately, these documents are written by the Federal Office of Child Support Enforcement. They're written from a federal perspective. They're sometimes a little bit cryptic in the language that they use. So if you have any questions about what is this document really telling me to do? 

Please do not hesitate to contact the Employer Services Center to ask questions. That's why they're here is to assist you in any of your child support topics. So, you know, please don't hesitate to contact them. Second thing is look for the time frames that are listed in the National Medical Support Notice. 

You only have a limited amount of time to be able to make a response. So as an employer you have 20 days to figure out, what are you going to do with this document? And then if you forward it on to a plan administrator, that administrator has 20 days to do a response. 

So Oklahoma Child Support Services should be receiving a response back from the plan administrator within 40 days of the initial document going out. Now, it looks like I've got some people who need to be admitted to the webinar so let me take care of that quickly. And I don't see them on here. But we will start back in. Okay. 

So we have 40 days as a total time limit for a response to go back to child support. Okay, the responses that we would anticipate from the employer, and these are listed on the National Medical Support Notice as options. The first one is that this person was never employed by your company. You mark the particular response and you send it back and then you don't have to worry about the rest of the instructions in the documents. 

The second one would be your particular company does not offer insurance for anybody. So that's just not a benefit that you provide. So if that's the situation, please mark that one and send it back in. Now for this particular case, child support can mark your information and indicate that you guys don't offer insurance and that would prevent future National Medical Support Notices being issued to you on that particular employee. 

Unfortunately, we don't have a method for being able to mark that on a company profile. So that's a future wish that we would be able to mark that for all of the cases related to your company but we don't have that ability at this time. So when you come across a National Medical Support Notice and you don't offer insurance at all, please respond and let us know that you don't offer insurance so we can mark that for this particular case. 

The third option is that this employee's among a class of employees, like they're part time or they're non-union, and they're not eligible for family health coverage under any plan that you maintain. So if they're not eligible you will then let us know that they are not eligible and they won't ever become eligible. 

The fourth one is that they're a former employee. They used to be here but they're not here any longer. Fifth one is that the cost of the insurance is excessive in comparison to the reasonable cost limitations that are listed in the National Medical Support Notice. 

Now we'll spend a little more time on that later on in the presentation so, you know, keep that in mind when we go through that particular example. Okay our sixth one is that this particular employee is on probation. They're not eligible yet but they eventually will be. So, they could be that if it's more than 90 days, then you need to let us know that they'll be eligible on such and such date. 

And it could be that you need to tell us what is going to be the trigger for their eligibility. Is it time? Is it working a certain number of hours? Is it getting out of a training status? So what is it going to be for them to become eligible? Usually it's time and once that time period has elapsed, then you will go ahead and do enrollment, okay, without having to receive another notice from Oklahoma Child Support Services. 

Now the last option is yes this is an employee. They're eligible so they can forward that National Medical Support Notice over to your plan administrator. And your response would be the date that you sent it over to that plan administrator for them to process it on what they need to do. 

Okay, so a lot of that was review from our main webinar. Now we're getting down to what do I do with the documents? Well, here's the rest of the story. And that's pretty much what this webinar is about. 
You've got different scenarios of... you know, do you enroll the child or do you not? 

So the first one is how do I know if I am required to enroll a child? Well the first is, is that the National Medical Support Notice is that official notification. It's the document that's telling you, "Hey, here's a court order that says this employee has to provide employer-sponsored coverage, insurance coverage for their child." 

And employers must follow the instructions in the National Medical Support Notice. It's not optional. It's not if the employee wants to do it. A court has actually ordered for the employee to provide this coverage. 

Now, the National Medical Support Notice can be issued by Oklahoma Child Support Services, child support program from another state, or a tribal child support program. Now if your employee indicates that this information is out of date, the employee needs to contact Oklahoma Child Support Services. 

And they would contact our CARE customer service line. As opposed to calling the Employer Services Center. CARE is set up specifically to be able to answer the questions of parents and those who have child support cases. Whereas the Employer Services Center is set up to answer your questions. 

Okay, what if your employee says, "Uh, hey. I'd really like to get private insurance instead of having the company policy?" Since you received a National Medical Support Notice, you have to follow that. I mean it's a court order that's telling you, you have to enroll the child. So the employee should contact child support services for any questions on that. So say there's a court order that has been issued by the court that modifies that previous order and it's never been provided to Oklahoma Child Support Services. 

That's something that the employee will need to take care of. Where the employee will say to the child support, "Hey, here's a new order." Child support will be able to document it and then they would send you a notice if that court order specifies that private coverage is appropriate. So they would send you a termination of the medical support order. Now, if the employee just has the desire for private coverage as opposed to having a court order that authorizes it, you'll still have to follow the National Medical Support Notice. The employee does not have the choice to just change the court order without the court providing that approval. 

Okay, here's the biggy. The employee believes that this cost of the coverage is too high. Now, there's a part in the National Medical Support Notice that helps you figure out, well what's a reasonable cost amount? So, in the paragraph about withholding limits there is a statement about a reasonable cost limit. And it will provide a specific dollar amount if the court has ordered... Here's the maximum amount that can be sent by this employee for dependent coverage. 

Because a couple of things we need to think about. One is that, that limit applies to the children's cost only. The court does not include in the cost of the employee or any other adults in that calculation. So if your employee does not have coverage at all at this point, and say your coverage is $100 for adults and another $100 for the child. 

Well, the cost that you will be looking at is the cost of the child, the second $100. Additionally, it's the cost of all dependent children. So, say the employee already has a child that has insurance coverage, you'll include that child's cost in on the maximum amount that is compared to the regional cost limits. So if you have family coverage that's a flat rate of $200 for all of the dependent children and adding one more on doesn't increase the costs, you still look at the $200 in comparison to the regional cost limits. 

It's broken out for the dependents as opposed to a specific child. The really complicated version is this employee has more than one child support order and their income was different when the second order was obtained. And you could end up with two reasonable cost limits that you are reviewing. In that situation please contact the Employer Services Center. 

What they'll end up having to do is ask for a reconciliation from the district child support offices to provide you some guidance on that. So that is pretty complex and it's something that doesn't come across very often, but we do know it is a possibility. Okay, say that you've got a National Medical Support Notice and it doesn't have that specific dollar amount listed in it.
 
No Audio: CCPA Withholding Limitations - CCPA Percentage chart for withholding child support.  50% of the disposable income if the obligor is supporting another family.  55% of the disposable income if the obligor is supporting another family, with arrears greater than 12 weeks. 60% of the disposable income if the obligor is not supporting another family.  65% of the disposable income if the obligor is not supporting another family, with arrears greater than 12 weeks. 

Well, in that situation we have to compare it against the Consumer's Credit Protection Act amount - so the CCPA. Now these limits look at the amount of disposable income for the employee and the maximum percentage of that income that would be available for the combination of child support and insurance coverage. 

So say you have an Income Withholding Order for an employee, and you received a National Medical Support Notice. So you will take the amount from the Income Withholding Order and add it to the cost of the children's coverage and compare it to the CCPA limit. So on the CCPA limit, how you figure out what's the maximum amount is that first you're going to look at the disposable income for your employee. 

Now this is going to be the income after the mandatory deductions of like taxes, your social security, those types of items. Voluntary deductions are not included in on this calculation. So say they've got a deduction for a car payment from their paycheck. That would not be included. Or say for retirement, if that retirement is voluntary. 

If you've got a legally required retirement then that would be included in the calculation. Such as, some states have a legally required retirement for union employees. The state of Oklahoma, state employees have a legally required contribution towards their retirement. So that would be included on the calculation for disposable income. So you take the disposable income and you multiply it times a percentage. 

Now the percentage is on a sliding scale and we'll look at that table in just a moment. It lets you know what's the maximum dollar amount that can be considered for withholding. So here is our table. And it ranges from 50% up to 65% depending upon if the employee is supporting another family or if they have just one family. 

So if your employee... you know, with one child support order they are most likely supporting one family. However they could be supporting a family within their household and they have a child support order that would actually be two families. Some of the federal guidance ask you to take a look at the marital status. That might be helpful, except that you can have someone who is single, never been married and they have multiple families that they are supporting because they have multiple children that were born out of wedlock. 

So how do you find out if the employee is supporting more than one family? You'll need to ask them. Oklahoma Child Support Services is not necessarily going to have that information. Now we would know if they had more than one child support case but we wouldn't necessarily know what their marital status is or if they have any children that are living in their household. 

So the employee is going to be your best source of information on figuring out if they're supporting more than one family. Okay, our next question is - What if the employee is not yet eligible to enroll because they have not completed an employer's waiting period for enrolling in insurance? In other words, they're still on probation. Okay the first thing is, is that you, as an employer, cannot refuse a National Medical Support Notice because the employee is on probation. 

So you would want to respond with, to the Employer Services Center, the employee is subject to a waiting period, the length of that waiting period, the date when the employee will be eligible for coverage and what type of trigger is necessary for the employee to become eligible for coverage. So at the completion of the probation period you would enroll the employee and the children in the coverage, and while the OKESC, the Employer Services Center does mark these for follow up, you'll still need to enroll the employee without receiving an additional document. 

So the ESC will try to give you a reminder of that but there are going to be times when you are not going to get that reminder. So please understand that yes, you are required to go ahead and enroll the children at the end of the probation period. Another thing to keep in mind on that is the National Medical Support Notice is a qualifying event. 

You do not need to wait until you have open enrollments. You don't have to wait for an enrollment season. So at the end of the probation period that qualifying event kicks in and you can just go ahead and do enrollment and not wait for open season. 

Okay say that you've got a seasonal or a temporary employee. If your employee is only sporadically eligible for insurance coverage then contact the Employer Services Center to notify. This is especially important for, say, temp agencies. Because their eligibility could be based upon, did they work that week or did they not work that week? 

The courts do not have the expectation for you to enroll a child one week and then disenroll the next week. That's going to be very disruptive to the family. So notify the Employer Services Center about that. They'll contact the district child support office to let them know, "Hey this employee is only sporadically eligible," and the district office may at that point request the court to modify the order. 

So they could either request for a cash medical support to be ordered or to allow for private insurance the type of coverage that is ordered for the child. So at the point in time that the court has modified the order, then you would receive instructions to refrain from enrollment. Okay our next issue is that your employee says, "Hey you're only supposed to look at 5% of my income as being the cost limits." 

So 5% is the amount that the court looks at, but this calculation is only done by the court. It's not done by child support. 
It's not done by employers and that's because the court considers all of the sources of income for that particular individual. So you as an employer, you're going to have insufficient information about that person's income to be able to perform that calculation. You know, they may work two jobs. 

They may have properties that they own that they get income off of. And the court's going to take all of that into account in calculating what the reasonable cost limit is going to be for the cost of the insurance. So if your employee asks you to, you know, take a look at their salary or wages and just take 5%, that's not something you would be able to do. 

And if you have any questions about, "Hey here's what the employee is telling me and I'm not sure what to do on this limitation," again, contact the Employer Services Center for them to be able to answer your questions on that. Hey - here's a topic that we have not touched on at all during this webinar and that is whether the coverage for the child is accessible. 

One of the things that the court looks at is whether the coverage is appropriate. Is whether it's actually accessible by the child or by distance or does this coverage meet their needs? So say you have as your coverage an HMO that is available only in Oklahoma but the child lives in Missouri. That would not be acceptable coverage for the child. 

So is the address that's listed on the National Medical Support Notice for the company or the child within your service area? Also is it within 60 miles of the care? So if not you would contact the Employer Service Center to let them know, "Hey this coverage is not accessible." So that leads us into the next one that is you look at the National Medical Support Notice and there is no address for the custodian or the child listed on there, but there is an address for one of the offices for child support services. 

We do have some cases where that we have to keep the addresses private. There's been a determination that we cannot release the addresses. So in that situation, you would contact the Employer Services Center, you would describe the service area of the coverage, and then the Employer Services Center would indicate if the child's address is in that service area, you know, is it within 60 miles of the care? 

If you do not have a specific service area then you would go ahead and enroll the child. But if you've got like a specified one where that you only have coverage for the northeast part of the state then that's going to be definitely a time that you want to contact Employer Services Center to get more information about whether that coverage is available. 

Okay here's the next one is that what if the child is on SoonerCare also known as Medicaid? Your employee comes in and says, "Hey I shouldn't have to provide coverage because my child is getting assistance from the state of Oklahoma on this." When you receive the National Medical Support Notice the involvement is still required. 

What the state of Oklahoma does is that the employer-sponsored coverage is the primary carrier and then SoonerCare is the secondary one. So what the Oklahoma Health Care Authority would do is that when there is a claim they would send that claim on to the private carrier or the employer-sponsored carrier first and then whatever was not covered by that carrier then SoonerCare would pick up. 

And the whole reason for this is that it reduces taxpayer cost. It's the big reason why that Medicaid cases will create child support cases. 
Child support receives a referral over from the Health Care Authority that says, "Hey this child is receiving Medicaid and the parents or, you know, we don't have both parents living in the home with the child and so we need to pursue the non-custodial parent to determine if they have an insurance coverage available for this child and that's to reduce taxpayer cost." 

Okay, our next question is can a parent or custodian provide insurance for the child even if the other parent was the one who was ordered to provide insurance? So yes, they can voluntarily enroll the child. You would not receive a National Medical Support Notice in that situation. Now there are times when the court will order both parents to provide coverage. 

It could be that the child's medical needs are of such that more than one parent needs to provide coverage. Or it could be that they have certain items that they're providing for coverage. Or that, you know mom might be ordered to provide the major medical and the dad might be ordered to provide the vision and the dental. So you can also have parents that want to voluntarily enroll their child even when there is no court order that's been put into place. 

Or they can voluntarily enroll the child and the cost of the insurance is more than what the order will allow. They can choose to go ahead and do enrollment. And there are parents that no matter what the cost is they want to go ahead and provide that insurance for their children. 

And it could be that they've determined that's going to be what's the best interest of the child. So yes, even when you don't have an order to do so the parent can voluntarily enroll. Okay and that takes us through our scenarios that we have. 

So at this point I would like to open it up for any questions that you might have. So are there any questions out there that you would like to ask? So remember to press star six to un-mute your phone so that you can ask your question. 

Woman 1: I have one. 

Barbara: Okay. 

Woman 1: Okay when you, you said we have 20 days to respond to the notice. Then do they send us one wanting us to enroll the child? Do we enroll the child at that time? 

Barbara: If the child is eligible then you will go ahead and enroll the child at that time. 

Woman 1: Okay, so as soon as we get the notice then we enroll them and then we fill out the paperwork and send it on? 

Barbara: Yes. 

Woman 1: Okay. 

Barbara: Yeah 20 days is the maximum. If you're able to go ahead and respond and, you know, follow the instructions in the notice in less than 20 days, that's great. 

Woman 1: Okay, but... yeah. Okay. Because I think I've been responding and filling that form out but haven't actually enrolled the child. Have been waiting for notification. 

Barbara: Yeah when you receive the National Medical Support Notice that document is telling you go ahead and enroll the child at this point. Now there are other questionnaires that come out from child support. One of them is the medical insurance questionnaire and that is asking for details about the coverage that is available and whatever one is currently enrolled in. Now that was a questionnaire. It was not notice thatÆs directing you to do something. 

Woman 1: Okay maybe that's where I'm getting confused. Okay thank you. 

Barbara: You're welcome. Are there any other questions? 

Woman 2: I have a question. 

Barbara: Okay. 

Woman 2: Whenever an employee is asking to contest the court order you gave a department where they're supposed to contact. What was that department again? 

Barbara: That is the CARE Customer Service Call Center for the employees, for the parents on the cases. Now that number, let me go ahead and give that to you. That's 1-800-522-2922. 

Woman 2: Okay. Thank you. 

Barbara: You're welcome. And are there any other questions? 

Woman 3: I have a question...(Inaudible). 

Barbara: Okay. 

Woman 3: (inaudible) ...that it talks about, that I wouldn't send this...
(inaudible) I would only send it in if it was within 90 days from the day of my (inaudible) So I could still be out of the (inaudible) days... (inaudible). 

Barbara: Well the requirement on the document indicates that you would send it in if it was more than the 90 days to ensure that you got notification within the 40 days. You can contact the Employer Services Center and provide that information by phone. And let them know, "Hey this person's on probation. We expect them to be on probation for 45 days." 

Woman 3: Okay. Thank you. 

Barbara: Great. Are there any other questions? 

Woman 4: I have a question. 

Barbara: Okay. 

Woman 4: If the employee...(inaudible). 

Barbara: Okay let me repeat the question back because I had a hard time hearing it. So let me ensure that I heard the correct question. So is your question that at the point in time that you received the notice you're going to start enrollment of the child. But your enrollment doesn't take effect until like the first of the next month. In the meantime the employee quits. What do you do? Is that your question? 

Woman 4: Right. If the employee is still on probation and you receive the letter...(inaudible) take that as notice to add the child...(inaudible) fill it out as such not knowing...(inaudible). 

Barbara: Okay what you would do at the point in time that the employee does quit then you would send in the notice of this person is no longer employed. So you've got, you are within that probationary period, they're not eligible yet but then they quit, then you would send the notice to the Employer Services Center saying during the probationary period this person terminated. 

Woman 4: So you wouldn't fill it out and send it when you got it? 

Barbara: Well, you... 

Woman 4: It seems like that we fill it out, send it in, and then the (inaudible) actually happens... (inaudible) we have added that child to the insurance paperwork that that employee has filled out here. So before they are actually eligible, before we actually put them on insurance, they quit. And then it's our responsibility to go back and change the (inaudible) because...(inaudible). 

Barbara: Well what you would do on that one is that at the point in time that they terminated you just let us know we can't put this into effect because theyÆre now gone. 

Woman 4: (inaudible) That's already, that's already mailed out of our...(inaudible). It's hard for me to track what I've sent in...(inaudible) once we've (inaudible) it we put a copy of it in (inaudible) file. It's not, it's not anything we need to take care of anymore. It's a done deal... (inaudible). 

We take that insurance paperwork and throw it away... (inaudible) Not thinking about, "Hey one of these was child support... (inaudible). 

Barbara: Well, the one change that you know that we will need is for you to just let us know that the employee terminated. And that does not necessarily have to be that National Medical Support Notice coming back to the Employer Services Center. We do take information about terminations of anyway that you can get them to us. 

So if you contact us even by phone to let us know that, "Hey this person terminated." We'll ask you a few questions to make sure that you are you. That we can take that information as simply as you can get it to us. And that's to ensure that we don't provide incorrect information to the family. 

So say that the custodian relies on the fact that the last word that they got from us was that this insurance is in effect. And they tried to do a claim on it. Say they're take a child to the doctor. We need to be able to tell that custodian that no the insurance is not in effect any longer. 

Well and our system will not send out that notification to the custodian until we've received... Say you send a response in that you're going to enroll but you don't actually enroll. If you don't tell us that the coverage is in effect then we don't put it in our system. Does that make sense? We only enter the information for indicating that the coverage is in place when you have told us that the coverage is in place. If you haven't told us that you've actually enrolled a child, then we don't enter it into our system. 

Woman 4: (inaudible) 

Barbara: That's part of it. And it could be that... Well, our system does do some automated information gathering so that if there's not a response that we've recorded, then it will try to send you another set. If you've got suggestions for us, we would love to hear them because we do understand that this can be very frustrating for you to receive multiple sets. 

So, I mean, our system is set up for being convenient for like the Federal Office for Child Support Enforcement or from a state perspective. We need to know the perspective of employers of what would be the easiest for you to see. If there is a way that we can change our system so that it works for the real world. 

Woman 4: (inaudible) 

Barbara: Now do you do benefits only, or do you also do payroll? 

Woman 4: (inaudible) 

Barbara: Okay, now if your payroll office notifies us that the employee has terminated, we do record that the insurance is no longer in place. Unless we are specifically notified that the employee has enrolled in COBRA, then we will show in our system that they're no longer there. 

Woman 4: (inaudible) 

Barbara: Right. And that's why when someone terminates an employer that's why we go ahead and show that the insurance is not in place any longer. So, if your payroll notifies us of the termination, then we will receive that information and apply it towards the medical support side as well. 

So you may want to talk with your payroll office to coordinate who's doing the termination notification. Because if they're going to take care of it, then we would already get that information. 

Woman 4: (inaudible) 

Dana: Barb, we have a question. It just piped in from (inaudible). Number 8, it says, "Would you not respond that the employee is not eligible due to a probationary period ending on such and such date, and then to send proof of the enrollment once the probationary period has been completed?" 

Barbara: Hey Dana, would you please read that question again? 

Dana: It says "Would you not respond that the employee is not eligible due to a probationary period ending on the specific date, and then to send proof of the enrollment once the probationary period has been completed?"

Barbara: That is correct. Okay, are there any other questions? 

Woman 1: When you send notice that an employee whose term will no longer be doing child support? Is there not some way for the agency to know to... that they won't be eligible for health also at that time? I mean, it seems that we will be notifying you twice. Once that there are terms that you, that there won't be any more child support and then another office, another time of the medical isn't available. Or will one just automatically cancel the other? 

Barbara: One should automatically cancel the other. That when record that that person is no longer with your company. We record in our system that they no longer have the insurance as well. We're more likely to get notified because of the Income Withholding Order that someone has terminated with your company and then with the insurance. But, however you notify us we'll record both. 

Now there are times, and this is so frustrating to us. That we get automated updates from various computer systems. One of them is a national database, and it sometimes is a little behind the curve. Where that you've told us that someone has left and then six months later, we'll have information that pops in from the federal system that says, "Hey, this person is working at this company." 

And our system will try to send out a new set of paperwork to you. So we haven't figured out a way to tell the federal system, "Hey, we've already been told by this company they're not there any longer." Because the Feds are looking at, it's possible that this person may have gone back to work for you. 

So they want us to go ahead and send out a new set of paperwork to just ensure that they didn't come back. So yes, we do understand that it is very frustrating to you because it is frustrating to us as well. So that's one of the reasons that you could end up with a set of paperwork for both the income withholding and the medical support, like six months after someone has left. Okay, are there any other questions? 

Woman 2: Is there any way we can send this information back online? 

Barbara: There is a, and I am going to pull up this slide, there's a way that you can email us. And I've got the address up on this particular slide. It's OCSS.Contact.ESC@OKDHS.org. 

Woman 2: Thank you. 

Barbara: Now, if you are a member of the Electronic Income Withholding Order portal, you can send terminations back online. There's not an equivalent for the National Medical Support Notice. There's a little thing called the Affordable Care Act that has placed all medical support updates, improvement projects on hold from the federal level. 

So, they're not going forward with the electronic NMSN - the National Medical Support Notice - until they know who's responsibility that it's going to be to enforce that. So if it ends up being a different agency, you won't receive those notices from child support any longer. 

If it stays with child support, you'll continue to get those from us and, you know, if that's the case, we'll have an electronic portal for you to do that on. But I anticipate that will be years down the line to get that developed. So, your best bet on an electronic response in a National Medical Support Notice at this point is that email address. 

And that's through contacting Employer Services Center to let us know that someone has terminated. Or if you want to scan the documents and email it, we can take it that way at that email address. Now, to contact by phone, it's 1-866-553-2368. Not a 1-800 number. It's a toll free number with the prefix of 866. That's very important to make sure that you actually get to the Employer Services Center and not, you know, some other location. The fax number is 405-325-8210. 

Are there any other questions? Okay, that concludes our webinar for today. Our next webinar is going to be February 12th in 2013. And it's going to be about child support payment issues. So, make sure that you tell your payroll sections about that upcoming webinar. 

We'll be sending out a survey by email to ask you how we did. You know, what sort of things you liked and what sort of things would you like to see in the future or changes that you will like for these webinars. And I thank you greatly for tuning in today for our webinar about "Should You Enroll the Child?"