Eligibility & Enrollment

• Regular full-time and part-time staff: eligible for the entire benefits package.
• Full-time instructors: eligible for the entire benefits package.
• Part-time instructors: evaluated for the benefits package offered to full-time instructors every October, based on credit/contact hours for all 4 terms. Part-time instructors must teach 3 of the 4 terms and must average at least 10 credit/contact hours over that period.
• Temporary employees and student employees: not eligible for benefits. However, temporary employees are eligible to access Employee Assistance Program (EAP) benefits, if needed.

Enrollment

• New hires: eligible to elect benefits within their first 30 calendar days of employment. Benefit coverage, if elected, begins on the 1^st of the month following a 30-day period from the official hire date.
• Open enrollment: held during the month of October for benefit enrollment or changes for the following calendar year.
• Qualifying events: for certain qualifying events (i.e., births, adoptions, marriage, spouse’s loss of coverage, employee obtaining other coverage etc.) an employee is able to make event-related benefit changes within 30 calendar days of the event.
• Basic Life Insurance and Long-Term Disability: automatic for all employees with the exception of part-time instructors, who are eligible for Basic Life after a look-back period on a term-to-term basis every February, July and September.
• Employee Assistance Program and Defined Benefit Retirement Program: effective immediately and does not require enrollment. All other benefits must be elected by the employee or are otherwise waived.

The Affordable Care Act ("ACA")

The Affordable Care Act (“ACA”) includes both an individual mandate and an employer mandate.

The individual mandate requires that most Americans have qualifying healthcare coverage or potentially face a fine.

The employer mandate requires employers to offer health insurance benefits to its full-time employees. Employees who work a minimum of thirty (30) hours per week, or the equivalent thereof, are considered full-time for this purpose. In addition, the ACA requires CNM to track offers and denials of coverage in order to complete tax forms that must be submitted to the Internal Revenue Service and employees yearly. 

Read more information about the 1095-C IRS Affordable Care Act Tax Form

Additionally, the Affordable Care Act requires CNM to determine eligibility for health benefits for part-time faculty in a new light. Many of the ACA regulations are complex; therefore, the contents herein shall provide a general overview of the regulations’ applicability to part-time faculty.

ACA Requirements and Applicability for Part-Time Faculty