Open Enrollment – Best Practices

Open enrollment is the time of the year when employers have a chance to review their benefits plans, and as a result, offer employees the chance to reassess the choices they made.

This is the opportunity for employees to look critically at how they have used their benefits over the last year and make decisions on whether the package they have purchased meets their needs. Many employees keep the same benefits from year-to-year, losing the opportunity to ensure they are spending their money in the way that best meets their needs.

Open enrollment will vary depending on the employer, but most employers offer the chance to reassess benefits packages sometime between mid-November and mid-January.

What is open enrollment and how to prepare for it?

Open enrollment is the period during the year where everyone has the opportunity to review their health benefits. For those who get health care through their employer, your employer will communicate the period to you. Between November 1 and December 15, individual market plans (i.e. exchange plans or “Obamacare”) also have an open enrollment period. If your employer does not offer individual health insurance, this is the time to see what the offerings are in your local market.

Why is open enrollment important?

This period is important because it is the time of the year when insurers must ensure those who choose to be part of the plan. Insurance companies are not allowed to require people to provide evidence of insurability during this period for health insurance.

Please note, there are some employer benefits where evidence of insurability may be required when you exceed a certain level. This is common with long-term disability and life insurance. However, it does not apply to health insurance during the open enrollment period.

Outside the open enrollment window, you can only change your health insurance and other benefits under special circumstances. These exceptions are sometimes called “life events” or “special enrollment periods” in informational materials because they are events that may change your individual health insurance needs.

A qualifying life event includes the birth or adoption of a child, getting married or divorced, moving (when the insurance you have will no longer cover you), losing a job, getting a job, or when your COBRA insurance expires.

It is important to note that there is a compliance element of these special enrollment periods – you only have 60 days following the event in order to qualify for the special enrollment period.

How does open enrollment work?

Open enrollment is a set period of time, which will depend on where you purchase health insurance. For people who buy insurance on the marketplace, the dates are November 1 – December 15, although some states have extended periods.

For people that get insurance through the workplace, you will need to stay tuned to workplace communications for more details.

The employer has the flexibility to determine the open enrollment period, which may be as short as two weeks. Your employer will provide a summary of the benefit choices being offered. Many employers also have information sessions to help employees learn about the offerings.

This year, there are some differences to open enrollment. There is no longer an individual mandate for health insurance, which means there are no tax penalties for not having a health insurance plan.

However, this change did not impact the employer mandate for employers with 50+ employees.

Companies that are covered by the employer mandate are still required to offer insurance to their qualifying full-time employees.

Open enrollment benefits

Open enrollment is a good time to review all the benefits that your employer offers. Employers offer different benefits packages, but it is common that employees will have the opportunity to review their health insurance, dental insurance, FSA, HSA, life insurance, and disability coverages.

For some benefits, such as an FSA or an HSA, the amount that you are allowed to contribute increases, so you will want to review how you spent the money invested the previous year.

It can be overwhelming to review, but it is important for employees to take the time to look at their coverages at least every other year. Needs change over time and employees often don’t consider their needs until something big happens in their life.

It is worth the time and effort to analyze your risks and the costs of these coverages during the open enrollment period.

Open enrollment for employers

For employers, open enrollment is the ideal time for you to remind employees of all the benefits you offer them. Employers often allow this process to be passive.

Employees only need to make selections if they want to change something about their benefits. But this is a good opportunity for employers to review choices with their employees and explain some of the choices made. Employees who understand their benefits packages are often happier with them.

Finding a consultant for open enrollment

Large companies may be able to hire a benefits expert to guide them throughout the year. This is often not feasible for smaller companies where a benefits expert is only needed for a few weeks out of the year.

Oftentimes, the HR department will handle small issues, but benefits are varied and highly regulated in the United States.

A benefits solution provider such as Vantage Point can help you keep on top of compliance issues so you don’t have to worry about them.

A benefits consultant can help your company run its enrollment period, which is often one of the biggest, most labor-intensive events that the human resources department will handle on an annual basis.

Making things easy with technology

Technology takes some of the stress out of the open enrollment period. At a minimum, most companies will use an online registration system for open enrollment. This takes reduces the risk of human error that can happen with written forms.

As technology improves, it helps employees model their benefits needs so they can make the best decisions for their families.

VantagePoint offers two portal solutions to help facilitate on-boarding and open enrollment.

Open enrollment is fast-approaching for employers and employees. This is the time of year where employees have the opportunity to review their employer-provided benefits to ensure all of their needs are being met.

Employers are wise to take advantage of this time to promote their packages so employees understand the value that benefits provided to them.

Finding a benefits consultant for this period is not only advisable, but necessary in order to make the process less stressful for the HR department of your company, but also to be able to offer your employees useful choices for their benefits packages.

Get in touch with our benefits consultants and go through the open enrollment period worry-free!

Call us. We are here to help.

Monday – Friday: 8:30 am – 5:30 pm (516) 599-2120 or Info@VantagePointBenefit.com

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