Last week, ASA and its partners in the Employers for Flexibility in Health Care (E-Flex) coalition met with officials from the U.S. Department of the Treasury and the U.S. Internal Revenue Service to begin detailed discussions regarding the employer reporting obligations under the Affordable Care Act. These obligations will affect the information systems that staffing firms will have to have in place by Jan. 1, 2014, to be ready for full implementation of the law Jan. 1, 2015.

The coalition’s goal is to simplify and streamline the employer information reporting requirements by offering flexibility to employers of different sizes and structures and options for how they can comply with the law’s requirements. Today the coalition sent a letter to the secretaries of the U.S. Department of the Treasury, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the U.S. Department of Labor.

Because the employer responsibility (“play or pay”) provisions and employer reporting provisions are integrally linked, the coalition will seek refinements and clarifications of the employer responsibility provisions as the employer reporting requirements develop. The reporting rules are expected to be issued this summer for public comment, which should allow time for staffing firms to implement their information systems during the 2014 “practice” year. ASA will offer dedicated workshops on those and other ACA issues at Staffing World^® 2013, Oct. 8–10 in Orlando, FL.