Categories: Fedweek

Watch for Coverage, Premium, Plan Changes

While the large majority of insurance enrollees make no change each year, experts advise that enrollees at least review the new brochure of their plan to make sure they understand the plan’s terms—in particular what is changing–and compare those features to those of other plans available to them. That’s especially the case if a certain coverage is of special importance to an individual. Also, enrollees should be sure to know the premiums; while the average FEHB enrollee share is going up by 4.4 percent, about in line with the last two years, within that average there is wide variation with some rising substantially. Two plans, Physicians Health Plan in Michigan and Blue Choice in New York, are dropping out, and Bluecare Network of Michigan and Aetna Open Access in Texas are reducing their coverage areas; the roughly 3,000 affected enrollees must choose new coverage. Four new plans are becoming available, in parts of Louisiana, Michigan, Texas and Virginia, while five existing plans are expanding their coverage areas, affecting parts of a number of states. One plan, Kaiser Foundation Health Plan of Ohio, will be changing its name, to HealthSpan Integrated Care. The FEDVIP program is seeing its first major change since being created seven years ago, with the addition of four plans. There is one new vision plan, from Aetna, bringing the total of options in that part of the program to four, while three dental plans are joining, Delta Dental, FEP BlueDental and Dominion Dental, bringing that total to 10. All are national except for Dominion Dental, which will be available in the Mid-Atlantic region. Another regional plan, GHI, centered around New York, is changing its name to EmblemHealth. FEDVIP premiums in existing plans are remaining largely flat.

 

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