The ACA requires that new employees who qualify for health insurance may wait no longer than 90 days to get insurance coverage. Just take 90 days from date of hire and you are done right? Not so fast.
Many plans for hourly (non-exempt) workers require a certain number of hours worked in a year to establish eligibility for group insurance coverage. This type of eligibility standard is very common in groups with a large number of contingent laborers (“Variable Hour” in ACA parlance). Employers with these plans should start the 90 days clock from date of eligibility NOT date of hire.
There are many other issues involving this rule and hourly workers. Here is an excellent article by Deborah Bracy, Susan Whittaker Hughes and Jennifer Mills of Baker Hostetler on this topic.