Here’s some long-expected, but nevertheless welcome news. The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) issued an announcement yesterday reassuring health plan sponsors that the Department will give them “sufficient time to comply” with final regulations (once the regulations are issued) dealing with the health reform law’s obligation on sponsors to supply 4-page plan summaries to enrollees. 

Proposed regulations released in late August alluded to a compliance date of March 23, 2012…scant time for many insurers and plan sponsors to comply with the detailed rules for preparing and delivering the summaries. The proposed regulations, if finalized in current form, would require insurers and sponsors to distill a substantial amount of important plan-related information and place it in specific fonts and formats on four double-sided pages. The proposed regulations include very specific rules regarding when the summaries must be issued, and updates re-issued. 

We have suspected from the start that the March 23, 2012, compliance date was too optimistic. The public comment period on the proposed regulations was not set to expire until late last month, and we suspected the DOL would receive a huge number of comments on the proposed regulations (yesterday’s announcement notes that the DOL did, in fact, receive “many” comments). As we are now only about four months out from late March, 2012, and still do not have final regulations, it is unthinkable that the DOL will adhere to a March 23, 2012, compliance date. 

Here’s our best guess: We will receive final regulations very late this year or early next (the DOL says it will issue the final regulations “as soon as possible”) and the obligation to furnish plan summaries will apply for plan years that begin on or after January 1, 2013.