The Affordable Care Act (ACA) introduced numerous requirements changing the design of employer-sponsored group health plans, but it allowed certain plans in existence before the ACA to remain as they were—so-called "grandfathered" plans. In order to maintain grandfathered plan status and remain exempt from certain ACA requirements, employees must be given notice of the plan's grandfathered status.

Any employee or dependent who receives a summary of benefits provided under the plan must also receive with that summary a grandfathered plan notice.

A grandfathered plan notice must accompany each and every document that provides a summary of benefits provided under the plan: open enrollment materials, summaries of benefits and coverage (SBC), summary plan descriptions (SPD) and summaries of material modification (SMM).

A grandfathered plan notice must contain a statement that the plan or coverage is believed to be a grandfathered plan and contact information for questions or complaints. The Department of Labor (DOL) has published a model grandfathered plan notice on its website. An English-language version is here, and a Spanish-language version is here.

Because grandfathered plan notices are required to accompany other notices and disclosure documents, the distribution method for the grandfathered plan notice will be the same as the notice or document it accompanies.