Health Care Measurement Group Overview

What is full-time eligibility?

The ACA defines a full-time employee differently than federal and state laws. Full-time is defined as an employee who works an average of at least 30 hours a week or more for the employer; 130 service hours in a calendar month are treated as the monthly equivalent of at least 30 hours per week.

Salaried employees are usually considered full-time employees and become eligible for benefits. Hourly employees become eligible for benefits if the number of hours worked meets or exceeds full-time work.

Some employees, such as variable hour and seasonal, may also be considered full-time employees based on ACA hours of service. Employers use a measurement period (look-back period) to determine whether a project-based or variable hour employee works 30 hours per week or 130 hours for the month. If the employee is not classified as full-time, the ACA does not apply.

Note

Based on the ACA full-time employee definition, employees can be considered part-time by company standards, but full-time according to the ACA.

Health Care Measurement Periods and Full-Time Eligibility

The Health Care Eligibility feature provides the ability to define certain measurement periods and evaluate employees for health care eligibility.

The following eligibility periods are available to employers:

Measurement Period – period of time (not less than 3 months and not more than 12 months) used to determine average service hours.
Administrative Period – period of time (not more than 90 days) used by an employer to enroll eligible employees in the appropriate benefit groups.
Stability Period – subsequent period following the measurement period where the employee is "benefit eligible." It cannot be less in duration than the measurement period (and in no case less than six months). The stability period either immediately follows the measurement period or follows the administrative period.

Configure the Health Care Measurement tool to track multiple measurement groups based on ACA requirements to determine if employees meet full-time eligibility requirements. Measurement periods must be between 3-12 months. If the employee is full-time, the minimum stability period must be 6 months. Non-variable hourly employees generally do not need a measurement. Part-time employees include a stability period that cannot exceed the length of the measurement period.

After the Health Care Measurement tool is enabled and configured for your company, you can:

View a list of available measurement groups.
Mass or individually assign or remove employees to or from measurement groups.
View up-to-date eligibility for all employees assigned to measurement groups.
Reassign an employee from their current measurement groups to another measurement group.
Manually change an employee's eligibility status after their measurement period has been completed and calculated in the UKG Pro solution.
Automatically create future standard measurement periods using the auto-extend option.

Earnings assigned to employees must be flagged as Health Care Eligibility Hours to track hours. A monthly average of hours is also tracked. On a nightly basis, average hours worked for all employees assigned to a given Health Care Measurement Group are calculated, as of the measurement date. When a pay period is processed and closed, the average hours worked for each employee being measured is updated. Average hour processing enables you to identify any employees who may be approaching the threshold of 30 hours per week or 130 hours per month.

If an employee works more than 30 hours a week or 130 hours a month, based on the Health Care Eligible Group configuration and duration of the measurement period, the employee is considered full-time. An Eligible status appears after the final payroll with the measurement period is paid and closed, which means the employee is eligible for an Offer of Coverage or a Form 1095-C.

Designate Earnings for Inclusion in ACA Calculation for Accurate Measurement of Hours to Determine Health Care Eligibility

Payroll history and earnings codes are used to calculate average hours worked.

Ensure earnings code(s) are configured for applicable hours of service, each hour an employee is paid, or entitled to payment. In cases where a Flat Amount or Pay Period calculation rule is configured for earnings, the health care measurement tool cannot calculate eligibility and auto-population cannot generate offer of coverage codes.

The earning calculation rule on the Earnings Setup page must include hours for the system to calculate hours of eligibility.

Configure Earnings for ACA Eligibility Calculation

To configure earnings for inclusion in the ACA eligibility calculation:

Navigation:Menu > System Configuration > Business Rules > Earnings > select earnings code

Navigate to the Earnings Detail page.
From the Detail page in the Include Earnings In section, check the Health Care Eligibility Hours box.
Select Next.
Select Save.

Configure Third-Party Earnings for ACA Eligibility Calculation

After you imported employee payroll data from an external payroll system using the API, you can use the ACA-Eligible Third-Party Earnings business rule to specify which third-party earnings to include in health care eligibility hours and ACA calculations.

Navigation:Menu > System Configuration > Business Rules > ACA-Eligible Third-Party Earnings

Navigate to the ACA-Eligible Third-Party Earnings business rule
Select the applicable earnings codes. Include only earning code(s) that use hours in the calculation.
Select Include.

Enable Settings for Accurate Measurement of Hours to Determine Eligibility

Payroll history and earnings codes are used to calculate average hours worked to determine full-time eligibility.

Ensure earnings code(s) are configured for applicable hours of service, each hour an employee is paid, or entitled to payment. In cases where a Flat Amount or Pay Period calculation rule is configured for earnings, the Health Care Measurement tool cannot calculate eligibility and auto-population cannot generate offer of coverage codes. The earning calculation rule must include hours for the system to calculate eligibility. For details, refer to the Designate Earnings for Inclusion in PPACA Calculation in the ACA Manager Guide.

Navigate to the Earnings business rule (Menu > System Configuration > Business Rules > Earnings > select earnings code).
From the Detail Page in the Include Earnings In section, check the Health Care Eligibility Hours box.

For third-party earnings, select which earnings codes to include (Menu > System Configuration > Business Rules > ACA-Eligible Third-Party Earnings).

Best Practices for Tracking Employee Hours in Health Care Measurement Groups

Review the best practices prior to tracking employee hours to prevent unintended measurement results. Follow guidance from your compliance advisor when working with health care measurement groups.

Table 1. Best Practices for Tracking Employee Hours in Health Care Measurement Groups
Tracking Employee Hours using Measurement Groups	Best Practices	Why?
Do employees classified as part-time need to be tracked?	Use the health care measurement groups to track individual employees who are classified as part-time, including part-time variable, project-based, or other part-time designation.	Including part-time employees enables employers to measure the full-time eligibility requirement under ACA. Note Every employee who is added to a health care measurement group, regardless of employment status, is automatically assigned a part-time status during the measurement period.
Do employees classified as full-time need to be tracked?	Avoid using health care measurement groups to track traditional full-time employees.	Including full-time employees may result in their misclassification as a part-time when auto-population of Form 1095-C is enabled. It may also negatively impact UKG Pro Benefits Open Enrollment and Life Events sessions where ACA reporting plans are configured for eligible full-time employees.
When should I use the Health Care Measurement Group tool in UKG Pro solution to track employee hours? Is it an optional tool?	Employers can determine full-time status by counting each employee’s hours of service using one of two measurement methods: monthly or look-back. The health care measurement tool uses the look-back method which tracks hours over a set period to calculate the average number of hours worked over that period. The other method is the monthly method. Employers can choose the method that works best for their organization and the use of the tool is optional.	To help support your organization's efforts to identify full-time eligibility under the ACA for your employee population; and, to facilitate the generation of data for Forms 1095-C and 1094-C reporting.
Is the Health Care Measurement tool a compliance tool?	Avoid using the Health Care Measurement tool as a compliance tool.	The Health Care Measurement tool was not designed to be a compliance tool. Consult with your employer's compliance advisor to ensure your organization is meeting ACA reporting requirements.

Enable Web Access Rights to Health Care Eligibility and Measurement Groups

System administrators must enable web access rights to health care eligibility and measurement groups in role administration for each role. Depending on the role, access can be assigned to view, edit, add, or delete eligibility periods and measurement groups. Access to add and delete groups of employees from health care measurement groups can only be assigned to the employee administrator role.

Navigation:Menu > System Configuration > Security > Role Administration

From the Role Administration page, select Add.
Add or select the applicable role.
Navigate to the Web Access Rights page.
For each role, follow the navigation and assign access rights for the page or control by checking the box.

Select Save.

Table 2. Role and Access Rights to Health Care Eligibility and Measurement Groups
Role	Navigation	Web Access Rights
Employee	Myself > Benefits > Health Care Eligibility	View
Manager	My Team > My Employees, My Employees List > My Team > Benefits > Health Care Eligibility	View and Edit
	My Team > My Employees, My Employees List > My Team > Benefits > Health Care Eligibility > Change Health Care Measurement Group	View and Edit
	My Team > My Employees, My Employees List > My Team > Benefits > Health Care Eligibility > Change Health Care Eligibility Period	View and Edit
Employee Admin	Employee Admin > Health Care Eligibility	Add, View, and Delete
	Employee Admin > Health Care Eligibility > Health Care Eligibility Summary	View
	Employee Admin > Health Care Eligibility > Health Care Measurement Groups	Add, View, and Delete

Enable Web Access Rights to the Health Care Measurement Groups Business Rule

Prior to configuring health care measurement groups, system administrators must enable web access rights to View and Edit the Health Care Measurement Groups business rule.

Navigation:Menu > System Configuration > Business Rules

From the Business Rules Access Rights page, locate the Health Care Measurement Groups business rule.
From the Health Care Measurement Groups section, select the boxes in the View and Edit columns.
Select Save.

Configure Health Care Measurement Groups

Health Care Measurement Groups are configured in the UKG Pro solution and use built-in ACA features to help employers identify employees that meet full-time eligibility requirements. Measurement groups track all service hours for assigned employees. It is important to properly configure the solution and maintain employee data so it is current to obtain accurate hours of service measurements.

After health care measurement groups are configured, managers and administrators can assign employees to the applicable group and view their health care eligibility.

Create health care measurement groups that use different period durations or different start and end dates, if needed. For eligibility measurement, include variable-hour, part-time and seasonal employees and consider including them in the following example categories:

Part-time/variable salaried employees
Part-time/variable hourly employees
Employees located in different states
Collectively bargained or non-collectively bargained employees (unions)
Collectively bargained employees covered by separate contracts (unions)

Keep in mind that for each measurement group, new hire and ongoing employees are measured differently. Once your health care measurement groups are configured, they can be assigned to employees.

Navigation:Menu > System Configuration > Business Rules > Health Care Measurement Groups

From the Health Care Measurement Groups page, select Add.
In the Group details section, at the Code field, enter a measurement group code.
At the Description field, enter the measurement group description.
Select how full-time eligibility is determined for employees. The options are 30 Hours/Week or 130 Hours/Month. This option determines the rule used to calculate an employee's full-time status.

In the New hire measurement period section, consider that in terms of health care measurement, a new hire is someone who has not been employed for a full standard measurement period. As soon as an employee has been employed for an entire standard measurement period, the employee is measured in the standard period and eligibility is reevaluated.

Select the measurement period start date. The start date can be either the employee's last hire date or the first of the month after the hire date.
Select the duration of the measurement period from the drop-down list. The new hire measurement period cannot be less than three months and more than 12 months.
In the New hire administrative period section, select the box if you are using the administrative period. The administrative period is an optional period between the end of the measurement period and the start of the coverage stability period. The administrative period can last up to 90 days.

Select the administrative period end date from the drop-down list, if applicable. The administrative period begins the day after the measurement period ends and ends depending on your selection:

End of month after measurement period
End of first month after measurement period
End of second month after measurement period


Measurement Period End Date	Administrative Period Option	Administrative Period End Date
October 15, 2021	End of month after measurement period	October 31, 2021
October 15, 2021	End of first month after measurement period	November 30, 2021
October 15, 2021	End of second month after measurement period	December 31, 2021

In the New hire coverage stability period section, select the length of the coverage stability period for new hires from the drop-down list. This stability period starts immediately following the new hire measurement period or administrative period, if used. The new hire stability period must be at least six months long and cannot be less than the new hire measurement period. In addition, the new hire stability period must be the same duration as the standard stability period for existing employees.

In the Standard periods for existing employees section, select the box to automatically create future standard measurement periods based on the same length and configuration of the current health care measurement group.
- The check box is selected by default when a new health care measurement group is configured.
- The check box is not selected for previously configured health care measurement groups, and must be selected by the administrator when the automatic extend option to create future standard measurement periods is needed.
In the table, select Add. The Add Standard Periods page appears.

To determine if existing employees are full-time, an employee history "look back" is used to calculate if the employee averaged at least 30 hours of service per week or 130 hours per month. If an employee’s average hours are above the threshold, the employee is considered full-time. The employee is then eligible for employer-sponsored health care for a coverage stability period, regardless of the hours the employee works during the stability period.
In the Coverage stability period section, select the coverage stability period from the drop-down list. The stability period is the period during which employees are considered eligible or non-eligible, regardless of their average hours worked during this time. The stability period must be as long as or longer than the associated measurement period and cannot be shorter than six months.
Select Save. The Add/Change Health Care Measurement Group page appears. The dates of the standard periods appear in the Standard periods for existing employees section. Select Add to add additional standard periods, as needed.
In the Health care eligibility for Open Enrollment and Life Events section, you can identify employees in the group who can elect employer-sponsored health care through Open Enrollment or Life Events during the initial measurement period. This step is completed while the employees are still in a Pending eligibility status. Employees currently in a Pending eligibility status are classified as part-time for the purposes of auto-population.

Important UKG does not recommend using the Health Care Eligibility for Open Enrollment and Life Events section of the Health Care Measurement Group tool. When configured incorrectly, unintended results may occur during employee OE and LE sessions.
Select Save. The Health Care Measurement Groups business rule page appears with the new code and description.
Select the health care measurement group's Code link and add additional standard periods, as needed.

Change Health Care Measurement Groups

You have the option to change the health care measurement group for an employee.

From the Health Care Eligibility page, select the Current Measurement Group link.
The View/Edit Health Care Measurement Group page appears.
From the Measurement Group drop-down list, select a health care measurement group for the employee.

Note
To remove the employee from the measurement group, select None from the drop-down list.
Select Save. The Health Care Eligibility page appears with the new information.

Add Employees to Health Care Measurement Groups

Assign employees to a health care measurement group using the Add Employees page. Administrators can mass assign employees by employee type, including terminated employees.

Once assigned, a nightly job runs to calculate average hours worked for all employees assigned to health care measurement groups, as of the measurement date. Payroll must be completely processed for employees when added to the measurement group. Payroll history records are referenced as part of the calculation. If this condition is not met, average hours are not processed. When a measurement period (standard or new hire) completes, eligibility is determined and displayed for assigned employees.

From the Health Care Measurement Groups page, select the Assigned Employees link for the applicable measurement group.
The Assigned Employees page for that measurement group appears. From the Assigned Employees page, select Add. The Add Employees page appears.
- Search and add employees based on Employee type.
  or
- Add individual employees
Select all or a subset of employees available. You can filter employees (Find By) by the following:
- Last Name
- First Name
- Employee Number
- Company
- Job
- Location
- Region
- Division
- Establishment
- Department
- Status
- Deduction/Benefit Group
- Full/Part Time
- Employee Type
- Date of Last Hire
- Hire Date
- Termination Date
- Seniority Date
- Benefits Seniority Date
- Local Union
- National Union
- Salary Or Hourly
Select Save. The Assigned Employees page appears with the updated list of employees assigned to the health care measurement group.
Note Employees can be added after the measurement period has ended and the measurement group is closed, but a retro calculation must be initiated in these cases. For more information, refer to the section Retro-Calculate Health Care Measurement Groups with Closed Measurement Periods.

Health Care Eligibility Summary

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) specifies that employers must provide full-time employees the option to enroll in employer-sponsored benefits. The Health Care Measurement Group tool can help employers decide which employees should be offered health coverage at the end of their measurement period. We also recommend that employers use additional tools to assist in making these decisions for their organizations.

View health care eligibility information for employees on the Health Care Eligibility Summary page, which includes the following features:

Enables managers and employee administrators a way to easily track the average hours worked by their part-time or seasonal employees, in real-time.
Provides benefits administrators a quick view of all employees that are trending as eligible for health care coverage.
Provides access to a summary of the different eligibility periods (including stability periods) in a downloadable file (CSV) with sort and filter options to find groups or individual employees.

Use the Health Care Eligibility Summary page (also called dashboard) to view up-to-date average hours worked for each employee. Employees whose measurement period is near completion appear on the top of the dashboard. The information on this page enables you to identify those employees who need to be addressed sooner than others.

Health Care Eligibility Summary (Dashboard)

Sort and filter on average hours and eligibility status for more defined information.

Health Care Eligibility Summary (Dashboard) - Eligibility Status

A separate full-time status analysis through the look-back method is completed for new employees versus ongoing employees. The measurement period that an employer chooses to apply for new employees is referred to as the "new hire" measurement period; the measurement period for ongoing employees is referred to as the “standard” measurement period. Ongoing employees are those employees who have worked for the employer through at least one measurement period.

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) requires new hires to complete the full initial measurement period before they can be eligible in a standard stability period. Employees hired soon after the standard measurement period has begun may be assigned to both an initial measurement period and a standard measurement period simultaneously, which may cause an overlap in stability periods. If this overlap occurs, the health care measurement tool prioritizes the initial stability period over the standard stability period when determining health care eligibility, OE/LE eligibility, and ACA reporting of the 1095-C codes.

Employers can download the current view of the Health Care Eligibility Summary page in an Excel file (CSV) by selecting the "Export to CSV" from the Actions drop-down menu. Select OK and the file immediately downloads to the computer.

Note

In cases where employees are ineligible during the initial stability period but eligible during the standard stability period, priority is updated to reflect the standard stability period.
When employees have a gap between the initial stability period and the standard stability period, the treatment as a full-time employee or not full-time employee that applies during the initial stability period continues to apply until the beginning of the standard stability period. The health care measurement tool automatically extends the initial stability period end date to meet the standard stability start date.

Health Care Eligibility Hours Flagged on Eanings Code

Remove a Health Care Measurement Group Assignment

Remove an employee from a health care measurement group assignment on the Assigned Employees page.

From the Health Care Measurement Groups page, select the Assigned Employees link for the applicable measurement group.
The Assigned Employees page for that measurement group appears. From the Assigned Employees page, select the applicable employees. The Remove button becomes enabled.
Select the Remove button. A delete confirmation pop-up window appears.
Select OK. The employee is no longer assigned to the health care measurement group.

Change Employee Health Care Eligibility Period

Change health care eligibility period information for employees using the View/Edit Health Care Eligibility Period page.

When eligibility is Yes or No (and not Pending), you can override eligibility status from Yes to No or No to Yes.

From the Health Care Eligibility page, Eligibility Periods section, select the Group Name link. The View/Edit Health Care Eligibility Period page appears.
Change the Eligible field from Yes to No, or No to Yes. An Eligible status of Pending cannot be manually changed because their measurement period is still in progress.
Enter any Notes pertaining to the employee's health care eligibility.
Select Save. The Health Care Eligibility page appears with the new information.

Retro-Calculate Health Care Measurement Groups with Closed Measurement Periods

When active or terminated employees are added to a closed health care measurement group, use the retro-calculate tool to determine health care eligibility.

Since payroll history records are referenced as part of the calculation, payroll processing must be completed for employees before submitting a retro-calc request. Terminated employees must have a job history to be added to a closed measurement period. After a retro-calc request is submitted, a nightly job runs to retro-calculate average hours worked for all newly added employees based on the dates defined by the closed measurement period. An updated health care eligibility status is provided the next day.

From the Health Care Measurement Groups business rule (Menu > System Configuration), select a closed health care measurement group.
From the Standard periods for existing employees table, select the Request Re-calc link.
From the Request Calculation window, complete one of the following actions:
- Select the Ongoing employees toggle to generate missing standard periods for ongoing employees who were active during the measurement start and end dates.
- Select the New hires toggle to generate missing new hire periods for employees hired within a specific date range.
Select Submit Request.

The missing period is added immediately with a Pending status until the nightly job is completed.

Assign Employees to Health Care Measurement Groups during Hire, Rehire, or Transfer

Assign employees to a health care measurement group using the Jobs/Payroll page available from the hire, rehire, or transfer work event.

The field is optional, by default; however, by using the Platform Configuration feature, administrators can make this field required or hidden, if needed.

From the Jobs/Payroll page, select the Health Care Measurement Group drop-down menu.
Select the Health Care Measurement Group.

Run the Employee Total and Average Hours Report to Monitor Health Care Eligibility

The Employee Total and Average Hours report provides detailed employee-level data for employees in all United States-based component companies to assist with monitoring monthly hours, health care measurement group assignments, and historical health care measurement group data.

Navigation:Menu > People Analytics > Team Content > UKG Pro People Analytics Sample Reports > ACA Services Delivered Reports > Employee Total and Average Hours

At the Employee Monthly Hours and Health Care Measurement Group Data prompt page, enter the four-digit PPACA reporting year you want to review.
Select Finish at the bottom of the page to run the report.

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Configure and Manage Health Care Measurement Groups

Configure and Manage Health Care Measurement Groups