New Hire Benefit Enrollment vs. Open Enrollment for January 1 Eligibility

When a new employee has a benefits eligibility date of January 1, they need to enroll in the upcoming plan year's benefits rather than the current plan year's benefits.

The standard New Hire enrollment experience only displays plans, rates, and coverage details for the current plan year. As a result, employees with a January 1 eligibility date may need to use an alternative enrollment method to access the correct plans and rates.

There are two ways to accomplish this:

• Life Change Event: The employee can complete a life change event and select January 1 as the effective date. As long as the correct date is selected, the employee can enroll in the appropriate plans without any additional profile changes.
• Open Enrollment: Alternatively, you can configure a temporary benefit profile that allows the employee to complete Open Enrollment for the upcoming plan year without having to select the correct effective date through a life change event.

The following steps explain how to configure the temporary benefit profile option.

Step 1: Create a Temporary Benefit Profile

If Open Enrollment has already ended and you hire a new employee who is eligible for benefits effective January 1, you can create a temporary benefit profile to allow the employee to complete Open Enrollment.

1. Create a copy of the employee's standard benefit profile.
2. Adjust the Open Enrollment period to include Today through the end of the current plan year.
3. Disable New Hire enrollment by setting the enrollment period to 0 days from the hire date.

This configuration allows the employee to complete Open Enrollment rather than being directed to the standard New Hire enrollment process.

Step 2: Assign the Temporary Profile to New Hires

Assign the temporary benefit profile to any new employee who has a January 1 benefits eligibility date and will be using Open Enrollment to enroll.

The employee can then complete Open Enrollment and select from the plans and rates applicable to the upcoming plan year.

Step 3: Return Employees to Their Standard Benefit Profile

Once the new plan year begins on January 1:

1. Identify employees who were assigned the temporary benefit profile.
2. Move those employees back to their standard benefit profile.
3. Confirm that the temporary profile is no longer assigned to employees who should be using the standard profile.

The temporary profile is only needed to facilitate enrollment during the transition between plan years. It should not permanently replace the employee's standard benefit profile.

Best Practice: Set a reminder for January 1 to review employees assigned to the temporary profile and return them to their standard profiles as appropriate.