Travis Software Official Blog

In the past year, many submissions from the Travis Ideabook have made their way into our Travis Systems! Every year we add new features to our Travis products, and many of them come from you, our Travis Customers.

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On March 2, 1010, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (“ARRA”) was amended by the Temporary Extension Act of 2010 (H.R. 4691) (the “Act”) which, among other things, extends eligibility for the COBRA premium subsidy through March 31, 2010. The Act also includes a measure that extends premium assistance to eligible individuals that had or have a reduction of hours between September 1, 2008 and March 31, 2010 but did not elect COBRA coverage due to that qualifying event, and that later incur an involuntary termination of employment on or after March 2, 2010. Plan Administrators have new election period and notice responsibilities for such individuals.

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• Unless Congress acts, the last ARRA-eligible qualifying events are coming soon and WebCOBRA.com has been modified to ensure that you can successfully administer this transition. A new letter named ARRA Subsidy Termination Notice has been added to WebCOBRA.com and can be accessed in the Internet Word Processor for those customers that would like to customize the letter. This letter automatically generates when an AEI’s ARRA subsidy is within 30 days of the final month of benefit (the 9th month of his/her ARRA subsidy). The ARRA Subsidy Termination Notice will also inform the Qualified Beneficiary of their total COBRA premium without the ARRA subsidy.

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With this most recent release of Travis Cobra our customers can expect the following added functionalities:

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As of October 26, 2009 users of WebCOBRA.com should notice an improvement in their ability to more rapidly enter benefit plan premium rate changes. They will also see faster auto-generation of letters created as a result of entries made during the workday.

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Thanks to a recommendation from Sheffield Olson McQueen, one of our TPA customers whose clients have received audit notices from the IRS about ARRA subsidy audits, a new ARRA Audit Report can be found in WebCOBRA’s Report module. The report will list all ARRA receipents and all applicable premiums, subsidies, and payment totals to make IRS auditing a little easier. The report is fashioned in accordance with the information requested by the IRS for ARRA premium subsidy audits.

You can begin using this report as soon as October 14, 2009 in WebCOBRA, a sample is shown below:

WebCOBRA has always allowed users to send one COBRA notification letter set to each qualified dependent; now you can easily send a packet to the entire QB Group (family) without modifying the letters!

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We previously posted details of the new State Continuation guidelines for both Pennsylvania and Utah. The expanded versions of these laws are now available in the WebCOBRA.com system, and are referred to as so-called “Mini-COBRA” laws, which affect employers with less than 20 employees. (Employers with more than 20 employees are naturally covered by Federal COBRA)

Updated: 7/07/2009 – changed to reflect availability in TravisCobra.

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Two new ARRA reporting capabilities have been added to the TravisCobra system within the past week, and we wanted to make sure that you know about them!

Having two ARRA reports that deal with payments may seem like overkill; however, the two reports are necessary. In one instance you may want to look at all ARRA premiums in a month, but you also may want to see all payments that affect ARRA subsidies in that month. We can now let you slice the data both ways.

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WebCOBRA.com has always allowed you to disburse payment and premium amounts to Sponsor/Carriers or Client/Employers with the easy-to-use Premium Disbursement wizard.

Now, this process just got a little easier with the two new Premium Disbursement options that were recently added to your WebCOBRA.com system. Both of these new options will allow you to either include or exclude subsidy amounts in disbursement calculations and reports.

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The Plan Exclusion feature, which was originally discussed here, will allow you to exclude domestic partners and other ineligible dependents from receiving the 65% ARRA subsidy. This feature was released as a part of our continuing effort to update the WebCOBRA.com system so that you can administer ARRA subsidies more efficiently than ever!

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When you are adding a takeover QB Group into WebCOBRA, you may want to print a takeover letter and a new set of coupons so the enrolled QB knows where to send payments. Previously, you had to go into the QB’s screen to schedule the coupon set, but now you can schedule it from the QB Add Wizard screen itself!

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TravisCobra 8.3.0.15 was released today, April 28, and includes an ARRA Exclusion enhancement, originally discussed here, that will allow you to exclude domestic partners and other ineligible dependents from receiving the 65% ARRA subsidy. This is just the latest feature that has been added to the TravisCobra system to help you administer the new ARRA COBRA regulations.

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You can now integrate your WebCOBRA printing operations into your existing document management system with the ability to customize your barcodes.


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What is Single Sign On?

Single Sign On (SSO) is the ability for users to only sign on to a set of systems once. In WebCOBRA’s case, your website is the signing authority – they sign on to your website once, and only once.

1. User visits www.benefitsbyyou.com
2. User signs in using the username/password provided by you
3. User clicks on “Manage COBRA”
4. User is at the homescreen of WebCOBRA without having to:
   • Remember yet another username or password
   • Log In

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