General Information regarding COBRA and State Continuation (COBRA Services) for Groups in the SOCA MEWA

Please read before calling for assistance - your questions may be answered.

When a Group is approved for coverage under the SOCA MEWA, Anthem sends an electronic file to
BusinessPlans – myCobraPlan for automatic enrollment for COBRA Services.

myCobraPlan in turn sends all required notices to COBRA eligible individuals and submits all
coverage changes to Anthem. However, we do not have access to Anthem Group Numbers, Anthem
Member ID’s, see active Employee information, or when a termination was processed in their
system.

If you have questions about:

• Terminating Employee off plan to offer COBRA, contact FormFire at (216) 367‐9730
• COBRA elections or payments, email myCobraPlan:
  mewasupport@mycobraplan.com
• COBRA updates applied, contact your current Anthem representative or call:
  (800) 331‐1476

Please click the links below for additional questions:

• Eligibility for State Continuation or Federal Cobra?
• Cobra Letters
• Reinstatement
• Payments
• Subsidies
• Ancillary processing
• Access to the system

Eligibility for State Continuation or Federal Cobra?

The determination is made by the Group’s status in the prior plan year and applies to the next
consecutive plan year for the duration of the plan year. The status does not change within that plan
year. FormFire provides myCobraPlan with this information at the time of setup. If it needs to be
corrected, please contact FormFire. Note that involuntary termination is the only qualifying event for
State Continuation. Members have 60 days from the mail date of the letter to elect coverage.

Cobra Letters

When FormFire receives notification that a qualifying event has occurred, they send that information to
myCobraPlan in the weekly file and the appropriate notice offering coverage is automatically mailed to
the member the next business day. It is mailed from our mail house in Indianapolis with proof of mail.
To protect individuals, we are unable to email COBRA Specific Rights notices due to the PHI contained on
the letter.

Reinstatement

How quickly a member can be reinstated depends on when the member elects and pays for coverage.
Once payment is made for the first month’s premium a notice is automatically sent the next business
day to Anthem. Their processing times can vary, typically 5‐10 business days.

Payments

Payments should be made payable to BusinessPlans, Inc – myCobraPlan and mailed to BusinessPlans,
Inc.‐myCobraPlan, PO Box 2449, Omaha, NE 68103‐2449. Payments are tracked by myCobraPlan and
forwarded directly to the Group once a month in the form of a mailed check. Remittance is always one
month behind the premium month due to the 30 day grace period.
The Group will be invoiced by Anthem. myCobraPlan cannot take payments over the phone. Payments
from Cobra members can be made by check or money order or they can log into our web portal and pay
online. The online payment vendor collects a $20 convenience fee. We are unable to waive or refund
those fees.

Subsidies

If the Group wants to subsidize some or all of the premium , there is no need for the Group to send us a
check. Please have the Group contact myCobraPlan customer_service@mycobraplan.com with the
member(s) name, duration of the subsidy and amount (flat fee or percentage). We can apply it to the
Cobra member’s record. This means that we will not collect all the premiums owed and will not be
sending those funds to the Group. However, the Group will still be responsible for paying the invoice to
Anthem as usual.

Ancillary processing

myCobraPlan is contracted to provide COBRA administration for all SOCA MEWA medical plans. If your
Group has ancillary plans with other Carriers (not provided through SOCA MEWA), please be advised that
the Group may be required to provide Cobra services for those plans as well. If you would like to
consolidate those services with one company, myCobraPlan offers a discounted rate to SOCA MEWA
Group of $s 0/month or $432 pre‐paid annually. Please send requests to partner with us for ancillary
administration to customer_service@mycobraplan.com.

Access to the system

If you as the Broker want to have access to our Cobra system via our web portal, please have your client
send us authorization. These requests should be sent to customer_service@mycobraplan.com.

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