Natasha Adams

Responsible for overseeing and managing all aspects of employee benefits, leave of absences, compliance reporting, and employee support programs. Developed and implemented employee benefits programs to enhance workforce satisfaction. Collaborated with HR teams to ensure compliance with regulations and benefit policies. Analyzed benefit data to identify trends and improve program effectiveness. Led open enrollment sessions, educating employees on available benefits options. Oversee the administration of health, wellness, retirement, and other employee benefit programs. Ensure timely and accurate processing of benefit enrollments, changes, and terminations. Establish and maintain a systematic approach to leave of absence management, ensuring compliance with applicable laws and regulations. Collaborate to address leave requests, accommodations, and related employee support. Stay abreast of federal, state, and local regulations related to employee benefits and leave policies. Prepare and submit required compliance reports accurately and within specified deadlines. Administer government reporting, such as EEO-1, PCORI, Form 5500, OSHA-300. Maintain annual compliance calendar and support HR team to meet reporting requirements. Act as the primary point of contact for employees regarding benefits-related inquiries and concerns. Develop and implement communication strategies to educate employees on benefits programs and changes. Manage relationships with benefits vendors and carriers, ensuring high levels of service and cost effectiveness. Conduct regular vendor reviews and negotiate contracts to optimize benefits offerings. Serves as primary contact for 401(k) plan administrator and auditor, ensuring accurate submission of employee and employer contributions, and compliance with ERISA reporting requirements, and other mandated testing and reporting. Utilize data analytics to assess the effectiveness of benefits programs and identify areas for improvement. Generate reports and present key metrics to leadership for informed decision-making. Proactively identify opportunities for process improvements in benefits administration and employee support. Collaborate with cross-functional teams to implement enhancements that align with organizational goals.

Manage, research, analyze, evaluate and administers employee benefits programs including but not limited to, Defined Health & Welfare plans, Short & Long term Disability, Life Insurance, Health Savings Accounts, Flexible Spending Accounts, Wellness Program, Paid Time Off and Company Scholarships. Work closely with broker to evaluate and compare existing company benefits to other employers in the area & industry to ensure we are offering the most competitive plans to our employees. Develops specifications for new plans and/or modify existing plans. Prepares & implements new benefit plans & materials, summary plan documents and other forms of communication to employees. Conducts employee meetings & orientation of benefits. Ensures the company stays compliant with the preparation, and execution of legal compliance reporting at state and federal levels. Handles all benefit inquiries and complaints ensuring timely resolution. Prepares and manages all contributing factors of open enrollment including online system set up, cost evaluation & calculations, benefit materials, enrollments, carrier files, etc. Ensures timely invoice processing for benefits payments. Day to day administration of benefit questions, processes, changes, claims issues and vendor files. Responsible for company programs including blood drives, & quarterly employee meetings with 401(k)advisors.

Provide support for the Mercer health and welfare administration system including maintenance activities, generating and processing reports and investigating enrollment issues. Utilize the accounts payable system to process payments to benefit vendors; track and follow through to ensure payment was processed in a timely manner; maintain invoice tracking system. Process National Medical Support Notifications including processing and tracking orders received, entering changes in Mercer system, and communicating with affected employees and unions. Monitor benefits eligibility for union employees including monitoring set-up of Mercer system regarding union benefits. Process benefit deduction adjustments including researching and calculating refunds due to employees for erroneous benefit deduction amounts. Process 401K funding for retirement plans for weekly and biweekly payrolls and reconcile data to ensure amount deducted matches system reports. Generate reports from HRIS to reconcile retirement funding and to transmit to vendor. Perform various weekly and monthly audits to ensure HRIS is processing data accurately. Research and resolve escalated employee inquiries.

Administer employee benefits program including medical, dental, vision, life, short & long term disability, employee assistance programs & commuter benefits. Sole person responsible for day to day telephone inquiries and emails from 6500 employee’s. Process enrollments, terminations and status changes for all health and welfare programs including premium adjustments when necessary. Coordinate and assist with Open Enrollment. Travel to different company bases holding benefit presentations throughout the year. Day to day processing of HSA Accounts and Funding, maintain processing of Medical Support Orders. Organized company-wide Flu Shot program. Ensuring that all plans are administered according to Plan Documents, & Summary Plan Descriptions. Point of contact between associates and vendors as well as testing of vendor files.

Responsible for day to day processing of payroll at Riverview Hospital including but not limited to setting up new hires, processing terminations, rate changes, cost center changes, salary differentials, time entry, entry of voluntary payroll deductions, processing and maintaining of garnishments and court orders. Implemented system upgrade with Kronos for payroll, HR and timekeeper. Weekly planning, reconciliation and audit data reports.

Responsible for being the point of contact to the Benefit Administrators for resolution of complex issues. Responsible for weekly H.S.A processing as well as maintaining WellPoint’s sub-account with Mellon Bank. A member of the benefits appeals committee as well as researching the history of each appeal and processing appeal approvals and denials. Help to develop and implement process improvement opportunities within the benefits team such automation of family status changes, automation of retroben & retropay. Responsible for User Acceptance Testing for COBRA, H.S.A, Carrier Files, Open Enrollment. Prepare training materials and conduct parts of training for new benefit administrators. Daily system monitoring and cleanup of the PeopleSoft system. Knowledge of Health & Welfare laws, HIPAA regulations, & Erisa Laws in accordance with IRS regulations. Responsible for working with retiree eligible associates to help guide them through the retirement process and ensuring they fully understand what to do with their retirement benefits, pension, 401k, stock, etc.

Responsible for processing and responding to associate and management inquiries regarding human resources/payroll transactions. Process transactions for new hires, terminations, and active associates. Researches transactions and payroll issues, using a variety of databases and software. Responsible for maintaining payroll systems, including time and labor, and for preparing a variety of reports relative to payroll and HR transactions. Performs queries of the system as needed. Works under minimum supervision and may assist other service center associates in more complex issues.