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Understanding ACA regulatory periods

The three Affordable Care Act regulatory periods are:

  • Measurement. (12 months) This ongoing period is used to measure and determine employees’ full-time or part-time status. New employees are placed in what's called an "initial measurement" period and existing employees are placed in "standard measurement" period before every administrative period.
  • Administrative. (0 - 3 months) This period is used to enroll eligible employees in healthcare benefits, and update employee status (full-time or part-time). The administrative period is your time to make changes based on the prior measurement period results.
  • Stability. (12 months) After every Administrative period, a stability period follows. Employees' full-time or part-time status is fixed during this period regardless of the number of hours of service.

Using the Current period panel

The chart in the Current period panel helps you identify when to plan benefits enrollment for qualified employees.

When your current period is:

  • Admin: Use this time to offer healthcare coverage to qualified employees.
  • Measurement: Use this time to monitor your employees' hours of service if you want to prevent status changes (employees who are part-time but with full-time hours of service) in the next administrative period.
  • Stability: Watch the countdown to the next administrative period so you can plan any required adjustments.

Every month during the defined measurement period, your employees' hours of service are collected and analyzed by employee for this assessment.

  • When you have indicated an employee is part-time, but during measurement the employee's hours are 130 hours or more per month for a majority of the months, under ACA legislation, the employee is considered full-time (for the next stability period). You may be required to offer healthcare coverage or may incur a penalty under set conditions.
  • When you have indicated an employee is full-time, but during measurement the employee's hours are less than 130 hours per month for a majority of the months, the employee can be considered part-time (for the next stability period). You may not be required to offer healthcare coverage under ACA legislation.

You can see the monthly calculation for each employee's hours of service by clicking View details on this panel.