Open Enrollment – Active or Passive?

 

Submitted by Aimee Brown

 

Open Enrollment ends next Friday, Nov. 6^th.  Have you made your benefit elections yet?  Encouraging staff to read open enrollment materials can be a challenge!  Each year, HR asks eligible staff to review the open enrollment benefit plan options and to make their enrollment elections online.  But, what if you don’t want to make any changes? 

 

GaBreeze & State Health allow what’s called a “Passive Enrollment”.  Passive enrollment allows currently enrolled members to roll over their benefits from the previous year, without requiring the member to make an online confirmation (with the exception of the Flexible Spending Account enrollment – you must elect to enroll in the Flexible Spending Account each year if you wish to contribute to a Healthcare and/or Dependent Care spending account in 2021). 

 

On the surface, passive enrollment might seem like the easier choice.  However, enrolled members miss the opportunity to carefully consider the array of plan vendors, options, and costs associated with their current enrollments.  Additionally, enrollment in plans that no longer meet your needs takes a chunk out of your paycheck – money that could be better spent!

 

Active enrollment on the other hand, provides employees with the opportunity to review benefit guides and rate charts, use interactive tools, and search participating providers, ensuring that their benefit coverage matches their current family situation and needs.  Employees who take a proactive approach are more likely to learn about and understand how their benefits work, and have a better appreciation of what their choices during the year will cost them out of pocket. 

 

Taking an active role each year makes for an informed consumer and puts your hard earned dollars to work for you!  Complete your online enrollments with GaBreeze and State Health before the Nov. 6^th deadline.  Print copies of your confirmation pages and submit to the Human Resources office.  Note: if you wish to do a passive enrollment and let your current 2020 benefit enrollments roll over to the 2021 plan year, please send an email to HR notifying them of your decision.