Staff and faculty have until 5 p.m. Pacific Time on Tuesday, Nov. 23, to make UC health and welfare benefit plan changes for 2011. We encourage you to take any actions soon and not wait until the last minute to avoid heavy usage that can cause delays in accessing the website.

Visit the Open Enrollment website to make any plan enrollment or coverage changes for next year. You may take the following actions during this year’s Open Enrollment:

• Change to a different medical plan.
• Enroll eligible family members — including children up to age 26 — in your health plans.
• Enroll or re-enroll in the Health Flexible Spending Account (Health FSA) and/or Dependent Care Flexible Spending Account (DepCare FSA). Even if you are currently enrolled in these plans, you must re-enroll to participate in 2011.
• Enroll in the Legal Plan (not open every year).
• Change to a different dental plan (California residents only).
• Opt out of your medical, dental or vision plan, or enroll in a new plan if you previously opted out.
• Change participation in the Tax Savings on Insurance Premiums (TIP) program. (Enrollment is automatic unless you opt out.)

For 2011, health care costs – and UC’s premiums – continue to increase. For example, the standard Health Net HMO plan will continue with essentially the same benefits and providers, but will have a substantial premium increase – so you have decisions to make and possibly actions to take as part of Open Enrollment.

In response to these rising costs, UC has worked with the medical plan providers to develop two new, low-cost alternatives for 2011.

The Health Net Blue & Gold HMO is a new plan that offers the exact same benefits as the Health Net HMO plan, but with a customized network of cost-efficient providers that includes all the UC medical centers as well as many other medical groups.

For Health Net members with doctors in the Blue & Gold network
If your doctors are in the Blue & Gold network, you can retain the same Health Net coverage and doctors at a lower cost by moving to the Health Net Blue & Gold HMO.

If you take no action, your current Health Net HMO plan enrollment will continue for 2011 at the higher premium.

You also have the option of changing to any of the other medical plans UC offers in your area, including the Anthem Lumenos PPO with HRA – another new, low-cost plan available nationwide. All of UC’s medical plans offer comprehensive benefit coverage, but the monthly premiums, cost of services and how you access services can be very different depending on the plan. More information about all the plans is online: http://atyourservice.ucop.edu.

To make your Open Enrollment elections, go to At Your Service (http://atyourservice.ucop.edu/) and sign in to your account. If your plan requires a primary care physician (PCP), you will need to provide the new medical plan’s ID number for your PCP – you can search for this number by doctor name while in the Open Enrollment application.

Any changes you make will be effective Jan. 1, 2011.

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