Job Description
BENEFITS AIDE
JOB CODE 05000
| Effective Date: | 06/04A |
|---|
The fundamental reason this classification exists is to perform varied administrative and paraprofessional tasks in support of the day-to-day administration of the City's employee benefit programs. These programs include medical and dental plans along with varying levels of life insurance coverage, Flexible Spending Accounts, and a Deferred Compensation Plan. Work involves making independent decisions or solving moderately complex problems within well defined parameters. Direct supervision is received from a Benefits Analyst who reviews completed tasks for adequacy and accuracy.
ESSENTIAL FUNCTIONS:
- Handles customer concerns or requests for service in accordance with established policies and regulations;
- Advises employees, retirees, and dependents regarding City provided benefit programs, and eligibility for those programs;
- Determines and documents qualifying legitimate family status change events in computer system based on federal regulations that govern benefits, including HIPAA special enrollments;
- Effectively communicates, documents, and processes requests for benefit changes based on COBRA and HIPAA privacy rules;
- Assists employees, their dependents, and retirees in the completion of various benefit forms or on-line enrollments;
- Produces and interprets audit reports from the City’s self service Benefit Electronic Enrollment system;
- Summarizes and prepares narrative and statistical analyses of program activities;
- Drafts responses to routine correspondence;
- Performs research, collects data, and responds to benefit surveys;
- Updates statistical records relating to deferred compensation payroll deductions and program enrollment;
- Notifies, through phone calls or correspondence, newly eligible employees;
- Identifies employee and employer benefits requiring cost adjustments, both arrears and refunds, so that accurate premium deductions are withheld from employee checks and pension payments;
- Demonstrates continuous effort to improve operations, decrease turnaround times, streamline work processes, and work cooperatively and jointly to provide quality seamless customer service.
Required Knowledge, Skills and Abilities:
Knowledge of:
- Principles and practices of employee benefits administration.
- COBRA and HIPAA regulations.
- Qualifications for legitimate family status changes under the federal regulations that govern benefits.
- Modern office practices and records maintenance procedures.
- Research techniques and report presentation.
- Work cooperatively with benefit providers, retirees, and all levels of City employees.
- Use a variety of automated systems.
- Communicate orally in the English language over the phone or in person in a one-to-one or group setting to provide information or respond to questions related to employee benefit programs.
- Comprehend and make inferences from written material.
- Learn job-related material primarily through oral instruction and observation. This learning takes place mainly in an on-the-job training setting.
- Understand and effectively carry out oral and written directions given in the English language.
- Work safely without presenting a direct threat to self or others.
- Produce written documents with clearly organized thoughts using proper sentence construction, punctuation, and grammar.
- Make arithmetical calculations using addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, percentages, and averages.
Additional Requirements:
- Some positions will require the performance of other essential and marginal functions depending upon work location, assignment or shift.
ACCEPTABLE EXPERIENCE AND TRAINING:
Two years of experience in an employee benefits program including six months of experience in handling or processing claims; or two years of college plus one year of personnel related work experience. Other combinations of experience and education that meet the minimum requirements may be substituted.