New Jersey’s dependent verification project continues to suffer from poor communication. An article in The Daily Journal states:
“State workers and their unions are seething over the way an audit of New Jersey’s health care plan is being conducted.
It’s been three weeks since the state launched the review of roughly 225,000 public employees to root out ineligible dependents receiving health benefits.
According to some employees, letters were sent asking them to gather copies of birth certificates, marriage or civil union licenses, and 2007 income tax returns. They were told to send the information to a post office box in Illinois.”
In our experience, unions will usually understand and support the process if their leadership is included during the early phases of the project. It is important to help the union leadership understand the problem of ineligible dependents, and how it impacts their membership. If handled correctly the union can help reinforce the need for the project as well as assist in communicating important deadlines through their communication channels.
If this best practice is not followed, companies might end up fighting a battle that could have been avoided with good communication.
