Washington DC, OPM headquarters - For many, a second missed pay distribution is occurring today or early next week under the partial government shutdown. Image: Kristi Blokhin/Shutterstock.com
By: FEDweek StaffOPM on Wednesday updated a fact sheet it had issued January 11 on benefits impacts of the partial government shutdown, most notably to say that direct billing to enrollees for dental/vision insurance premiums won’t begin until after three missed pay distributions, rather than the two it earlier had said would act as that trigger.
That is an important distinction to those among the 800,000 employees currently unpaid—either on furlough or still working without pay—who are enrolled for dental or vision coverage or both under the FEDVIP program. For many, the second missed pay distribution is occurring today or early next week.
The prospect that those employees would have to pay premiums while in non-pay status had caused four Democratic senators to write to OPM to ask it to find a way to prevent that from happening. The reason for the change is unclear, however—whether OPM changed the policy or whether it all along had misstated the number of missed pay periods that would act as a trigger. Like the original January 11 fact sheet, a furlough handbook on the OPM site, dating to 2015, cites two missed pay distributions as the trigger.
With direct billing after three missed distributions, the FEDVIP program’s trigger mirrors that under FLTCIP, which both the original and the revised memo and the handbook identify as three.
The revised fact sheet also adds this information regarding the FEHB program, under which premiums accumulate for up to a year for those in non-pay status, to be paid when the employee returns to paid status: “Generally, new enrollments or changes in enrollment due to a qualifying life event do not take effect until the employee has been back in pay status for any part of the prior pay period. The exception is for a new enrollment or change in enrollment due to the birth or addition of a child, which is effective on the first day of the pay period in which the child is born or becomes an eligible family member. There is no requirement to be in pay status in order for an enrollment or change in enrollment due to birth or addition of a child to become effective.”
