The open enrollment period is the busiest time of any benefit professional's year, leaving pros with barely time to catch their breath. Now that annual enrollment is complete for another year, two benefits pros are at last able to breathe again and shared with EBN their unique challenges with the process.

Teaching the teachers

The Charlotte-Mecklenburg School System employs around 18,500 workers and is the largest employer in Mecklenburg County, N.C.

"Communicating to employees who work in a school system can be a challenge, because scheduling employee meetings have to take into consideration teachers' classroom schedules," explains Carrie Miranda, director of compensation and benefits at the school district. "You also have to realize that you have a workforce that doesn't work 12 months out of the year," she adds.

To address those challenges, the county school system turned to Benefitfocus, a health care benefits software provider. The company, based in South Carolina, offers a Web-based platform for open enrollment. Employees can tap into a Web portal that allows them to learn about the specific benefits they are eligible for, which differs, for example, for a teacher and bus driver. As a result, workers can make better informed decisions about their health care costs.

"The big thing that I've learned from the 2009 open enrollment period is that you can have an online system that educates workers about their health benefits and costs, but you must inform workers about the Web site all year long," she says. If not, then workers will only visit the site during opening enrollment.

In 2009, the school district conducted two open enrollments: One for health, dental and term-life coverages was held in May for the July plan year. The other, completed in September 2009, dealt with group universal life insurance, long-term disability and voluntary legal services.

"The greatest challenge is communicating and reaching out to every employee and making sure that he or she understands what is available," says Nancy Paradise, employee benefits coordinator at the School District of Manatee County. The district employs around 5,400 workers near Tampa Bay, Fla.

During last year's open enrollment, Paradise learned the truth of the adage, "You can't communicate too much." Paradise says, "We thought we were sending out enough notices. In hindsight, we didn't, because we had a great influx of people standing outside my department during the last week - which meant to me that we just didn't communicate enough." Even with e-mails or more notices, "we just have to find a way to reach out on a more regular basis," she says.

Scheduling conflicts only derailed Paradise's communication efforts further. Manatee County high schools operate on two different schedules, which meant some teachers didn't have the time in their schedules to meet with enrollment specialists, even though they were available onsite.

Although she acknowledges there were things her team could have done better, Paradise says, "one thing that I think we did well during last year's open enrollment is to start the online open enrollment process for flex benefits a couple of weeks in advance of the onsite open enrollment process for those benefits," Paradise explains. Employees who are comfortable with online enrollment now had the opportunity to get it out of the way earlier.

For 2010, the School District of Manatee County is looking into deploying a similar online enrollment process for health and life insurance. Currently, the school system requires workers to visit Paradise's department to complete open enrollment forms for health and life insurance.

Paradise says the system also is rethinking how it deploys its onsite enrollment staff, as the value of such assistance is lost to workers with shifts outside of normal business hours, such as custodial staff.

With the school system looking toward a broader online enrollment process, face-to-face meetings may become even more important, as employees lose the built-in face time with Paradise and her staff. "We have some concerns that once we go to an online environment, we might not be able to effectively communicate to some employees what is the best plan for them," Paradise observes.

Making the most of a captive audience

Open enrollment is the one time of the year employers can touch their entire workforce on health care benefits, says Ken Haderer, an executive vice president at Aon Consulting. The biggest test for employers, however, is to ensure that they can accomplish this in a cost-efficient manner, he adds. This means, in part, utilizing the enrollment process to help workers select the appropriate health plan and benefits.

Haderer believes that the economic downturn continues to reinforce employers' efforts to combine benefit strategies around communication and messaging that drives employee behavior. A deep recession has also caused employers to move faster toward a paperless enrollment process, he adds.

"Now, you might see a poster that directs a worker to a Web site to allow the individual to utilize the online enrollment tools to get information," but smart employers are also leveraging online-enrollment-based Web sites throughout the year, Haderer explains.

Whether it's a public or private employer, or whether employees have one or 10 plan options, the enrollment process is moving toward a period in which employers supply workers with online tools that allow them to make informed and educated decisions about their health benefits, notes Haderer.

>> Higher out-of-pocket costs.

More than four in 10 employers in a recent Watson Wyatt survey said they would raise deductibles, copays and out-of-pocket maximums due to the economic crisis. Some employers might raise doctor visit copayments by $5. Others might no longer provide 100% coverage for in-network services, opting instead to introduce some level of coinsurance. Deductibles for individual and family coverage are expected to increase by $50 to $100 or more among some employers.

>> Greater use of wellness incentives

Employers are continuing their push to improve the health of employees and their families. In addition to continuing the focus on wellness communication, employers are offering workers - and in some cases, spouses - more incentives like gift cards, cash and discounted premiums for undergoing a health risk assessment or participating in smoking cessation, weight management or fitness programs.

>> Consolidation of health plan offerings

Some employers planned to reduce the number of health plan options they offer to workers.

>> Closer eye on spousal and dependent coverageSome employers are requiring spouses to complete health risk assessments, while others are charging higher premiums for working spouses who have access to other health care coverage. More employers are also expected to audit their workers to eliminate dependents who are not eligible for coverage.

Source: Watson Wyatt

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