A method, apparatus, and computer program product can provide for procedures at an access terminal for handling the delivery of packets from the MAC entity to the RLC entity, with an aim to reduce the occurrence of RLC resets that might otherwise be caused by out-of-order processing of control packets following a serving cell change. In one example, a MAC entity may insert an identifier into a packet delivered up to the RLC entity, to indicate whether the packet arrived from the current primary serving cell. In another example, a serving cell change procedure may include steps to flush a queue at the MAC entity and kill any running reordering release timers. In these ways potential problems caused by out-of-order control packets can be reduced or avoided.