Strengthening your PEO: Why you should offer ACA services

Professional Employer Organizations (PEOs) have long been a helpful resource for businesses looking to provide the best benefits to their employees. The growth the PEO industry has seen in recent years just proves this point. But as regulations become more complex, and continue to vacillate between rolling out and rolling back, it can be difficult to ensure you’re offering all the best options to your customers without overtaxing your organization. With the increasing complexity of HR mandates, health care regulations, and other employer regulations, PEOs have been looking for new ways to help companies struggling to cover all these requirements on their own.

The value of PEOs to employers speaks for itself—but as they become more popular, how can you improve internal management of changing regulations and make the most of your business relationships?

Taking the burden off employers

Tax codes and health care are two of the biggest burdens to business owners, especially for small businesses. According to the 2017 NSBA Small Business Regulations Survey, two out of three small businesses say that the Affordable Care Act (ACA) regulations are somewhat or very burdensome. The ACA includes some of the most complex employer reporting requirements, and on top of that, they also happen to be relatively new. Combine these factors, and it makes sense that PEOs would want to maximize their health care compliance coverage.

From a small business perspective, research shows it also makes sense that businesses would want to use PEOs. Those that do are better able to focus their attention on their core business, enjoy an estimated 21 percent savings on HR administration, and are 50 percent less likely to fail from one year to the next than similar businesses. But if PEOs aren’t providing the help in the areas where businesses need it most (the ACA—and whatever might follow), then both sides aren’t getting the most out of their relationship.

In that case, how can you best provide ACA services to your clients—especially when the ACA seems to be under constant attack? Providing experts to talk customers through the regulations and changing requirements is nice, but leveraging existing technology, specifically equipped for this purpose, can be even better.

Partnerships take the pressure off

Health care continues to be a turbulent topic, as evidenced by the ongoing debates and proposals on Capitol Hill. Even in the unlikely event that lawmakers can agree on a plan to replace the ACA with some new form of health care, employers would still need all the help they can get deciphering and adhering to whatever came out the other side.

This uncertainty makes health care a valuable area of expertise to provide your customers. The continued confusion and changing priorities from the Department of Health and Human Services—at the same time that the IRS seems ready to collect on penalties—can be taxing for employers, creating the perfect place for PEOs to step in and help manage this changing landscape. It’s definitely an investment worth making.

Of course, the same uncertainty that makes health care such a hot topic is also what makes it a risk to take on. If everything could change in an instant, how many resources do you really want to allocate toward that particular law? What if all the time you put into creating some sort of technology-based solution could have been better used elsewhere?

Unfortunately, dedicating specialized time and resources to such an endeavor—especially with so much uncertainty surrounding health care—can be a serious drain, particularly if the ACA is drastically altered and your efforts go to waste.

This is exactly why partnerships with compliance-focused, and specifically health care-focused, solutions providers are such a strong option for PEOs that want to help their clients. Solutions providers specifically focused on health care can partner with a PEO and handle the management of health care compliance solutions on the back end, while you add a valuable service for your customers. It’s a win-win, and takes the burden of health care regulation off of your plate, while still passing along those highly valued benefits to your customers.

A stable choice for an uncertain future

The simple truth is that health care’s continued uncertainty makes it both a valuable asset and a risky endeavor. Intelligent solutions and informed professionals are the best way to help employers with their compliance needs, but many PEOs don’t have the resources to take such a risk.

Partnering with a company like SyncStream, with all the infrastructure to help employers already set up, can make a huge difference to your customers, and make your PEO a more valuable asset to them.