Open Season Reminders: Important Information for 2014

Open Season, the annual period when you can evaluate and change your health benefits, is here. Open Season is a good time to determine whether the health insurance plan in which you are currently enrolled is still the right one for you. Both career and non-career employees have the opportunity to evaluate various plans and make decisions on what is right for them and their families.

This year, some improvements have been implemented to align Open Season with employee ease-of-use.

Please read these reminders carefully to ensure you can make changes before the deadlines. A variety of tools are available to help you through Open Season, so be sure to take advantage of these resources.

24/7 Access: One difference this year is that plan brochures are now available online, 24 hours a day,
seven days a week. Employees can access important information at their convenience, when they need it.

The following guides are available now on LiteBlue:
• 2015 Guide to Benefits for Career United States Postal Service Employees (RI 70-2).
• 2015 Guide to Benefits for Certain Temporary (Non-career) USPS Employees (RI 70-8PS).
• 2015 Guide to the Federal Employees Dental and Vision Insurance Program (FEDVIP BK-1).
• 2015 Guide to USPS Non-career Employee Health Benefits Plan (NCEHP BK1).

Remember, plan brochures will no longer be automatically mailed to employees. To request paper
copies of one or more guides during open season, call the Human Resources Shared Services Center at 877-477-3273 (press option 5) or TTY 866-260-7507.

USPS LiteBlue: The LiteBlue Open Season website is a true “one stop shop” location with information and resources to help employees navigate Open Season. One of the best tools available to USPS employees for evaluating their health benefits options is OPM’s Plan Comparison Tool. The LiteBlue Open Season web page includes a step-by-step guide for navigating this tool. To get this information, please visit https://liteblue.usps.gov/openseason. LiteBlue also offers additional Federal Employees Health Benefits (FEHB) and Federal Employees Dental and Vision Insurance Program (FEDVIP) resources.

Open Season Deadlines: Keep in mind the dates below to ensure you have time to visit the LiteBlue Open Season website, view and evaluate the plans, make your decision and submit changes. Also, be sure that you changed your previous 4-digit USPS PIN to the new self-service password (SSP). You must have the new SSP and your Employee Identification Number (EIN) to access LiteBlue.

• FEHB: November 10, 2014 through December 9, 2014, 5:00 PM Central Time
• FEDVIP: November 10, 2014 through December 8, 2014, 11:59 PM Eastern Time
• USPS NCEHB Plan: November 10, 2014 through December 9, 2014, 5:00 PM Central Time
• FSAs: November 10,, 2014 through December 21, 2014, 5:00 PM Central Time
• Annual Leave Exchange: November 15, 2014 through December 15, 2014, 11:59 PM Central Time

FEHB Open Season elections and changes are effective January 10, 2015. Open Season cancellations are effective January 9, 2015. More information can be found in the Nov. 13 Postal Bulletin here: https://about.usps.com/postal-bulletin/2014/pb22402/pdf/pb22402.pdf.