Help Employees Cover Medical Expenses with a QSEHRA

If you are a small employer (fewer than 50 employees), you should consider the qualified small-employer health reimbursement account (QSEHRA) as a good way to help your employees with their medical expenses.
 
If the QSEHRA is indeed going to be your plan of choice, then you have three good reasons to get that QSEHRA plan in place on or before October 2, 2018. First, this avoids penalties. Second, your employees will have the time they need to select health insurance. Third, you will have your plan in place on January 1, 2019, when you need it.
 
One very attractive aspect of the QSEHRA is that it can reimburse individually purchased insurance without your suffering the $100-a-day per-employee penalty. The second and perhaps most attractive aspect of the QSEHRA is that you know your costs per employee. The costs are fixed—by you.
 
Eligible employer. To be an eligible employer, you must have fewer than 50 eligible employees and not offer group health or a flexible spending arrangement to any employee. For the QSEHRA, group health includes excepted benefit plans such as vision and dental, so don’t offer them either.
 
Eligible employees. All employees are eligible employees, but the QSEHRA may exclude
 

• employees who have not completed 90 days of service with you,
• employees who have not attained age 25 before the beginning of the plan year,
• part-time or seasonal employees,
• employees covered by a collective bargaining agreement if health benefits were the subject of good-faith bargaining, and

• employees who are non-resident aliens with no earned income from sources within the United States.

 
Dollar limits. Tax law indexes the dollar limits for inflation. The 2018 limits are $5,050 for self-only coverage and $10,250 for family coverage. For part-year coverage, you prorate the limit to reflect the number of months the QSEHRA covers the individual.
 
 

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