Industry Report Blog Series: Strategies for ACA Compliance

This blog was last updated on June 26, 2021

Sovos recently partnered with Aberdeen Group to survey 179 compliance decision makers across a number of industries to find out how they have handled Affordable Care Act (ACA) reporting. This is the second in a series of four blogs that detail some of the survey’s more notable results and findings. This installment will address strategies employed by both leading organizations those that were less successful in their efforts.

Commonly Implemented Strategies

Reporting organizations took a number of different approaches to ACA compliance. While some — 8 percent — hired additional resources to combat the challenge or outsourced to a consulting group — 15 percent — most chose to deal with the reporting process interally. Managing with existing resources, at 79 percent, was by far the most commonly reported strategy. Improving knowledge of ACA requirements was next at 62 percent, while investing in new technology for staff to use came in third at 25 percent.

Leaders vs. Followers

While organizations achieved success using different initiatives, not every approach was created equally. The numbers demonstrate that leading organizations relied primarily on in-house staff to find solutions. Rather than hiring new employees, these companies found ways to improve their understanding of applicable requirements and how to meet them. For many, this meant turning to technology solutions. Since they opted not to expand existing resources internally, they relied on software to do some of the heavy lifting for them. This ensured accuracy and timeliness in reporting. The survey respondents were broken down into two categories: Leaders and Followers. The former group comprised the top 35 percent of aggregate performance scorers, while the bottom 65 percent of scorers made up the latter group. Here are some results for each group: Leaders:

• 96 percent of filings accepted without errors
• 99 percent of filings submitted on time
• 18 percent of time spent addressing errors
• Reports were 97 percent accurate

Followers:

• 85 percent of filings accepted without errors
• 82 percent of filings submitted on time
• 74 percent of time spent addressing errors
• Reports were 84 percent accurate

The most notable — and shocking — figure listed above is the glaring discrepancy in accuracy between Leaders and Followers. There was a 56 percent difference in time spent addressing errors, with Leaders spending less than a fifth of their total time spent on ACA reporting and Followers spending nearly three quarters. Finding the right solution for ACA compliance should clearly be an organization’s top priority when tackling the process. While different companies find success in different ways, the Leaders were generally united by a common factor: The effective use of technology.