Our Compliance Corner question inbox has been overrun lately with inquiries about employer responsibilities concerning exchange notices. As you may recall from last year, PPACA requires all employers subject to the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) to provide notices to current employees and new hires about the health insurance exchanges and subsidies that may be available through the exchanges for qualified individuals.

The question we keep getting is: If employers sent notices to all employees last year, do they have to provide exchange notices again? The answer is for existing employees that got a notice last year—NO! For any new employees, yes, and actually, for new employees your clients shouldn't be sending the notices now, they should be doing it at the time of hire. 

According to the Department of Labor (DOL), employers are required to provide the notice to each new employee at the time of hiring beginning October 1, 2013. For 2014, the DOL has issued guidance indicating it will consider a notice to be provided at the time of hiring if the notice is provided within 14 days of an employee’s start date.

Source: http://newsmanager.commpartners.com/nahuw/issues/2014-09-12/4.html.