This chapter describes how to:
Review employee eligibility.
Enroll participants in benefit programs and plans.
(USF) Enroll employees in benefit programs and plans through PAR (personnel action request).
(USF) Assign Federal Employee Group Life Insurance (FEGLI) benefits.
(USF) Enroll employees in TSP (Thrift Savings Plan) Agency Automatic Contribution plan.
Terminating dependent enrollment or beneficiary status.
Generate
See Also
Understanding Benefits Administration
Before you can enroll a participant, your Human Resources department must set up personnel administration data: personal information, compensation allowances, and job data.
Page Name |
Object Name |
Navigation |
Usage |
EMPLOYEE_SUMMARY1 |
Benefits, Employee/Dependent Information, Review HR/Job/Payroll Data, Employee Data Summ |
View the personnel administration data. |
Access the Employee Data Summ page.
Annual Benefits Base Rate |
This field is blank if your organization uses a benefits base different from regular pay. Set up the Primary annual benefits base rate in the Compensation page of the Job Data Component, in the Annual Benefits Base Rate field. Multiple annual benefits base rates (ABBRs) are added using the Update ABBR component. Note. The only ABBR displayed on this page is the primary ABBR entered in the Job component for the employee. |
See Also
Using the Base Benefits business process to enroll participants consists of two parts:
Enroll a participant in a benefit program.
Initially, an employee’s benefit program assignment is assigned to the employee based on his or her employee pay group, but you can override this assignment at the employee level. Verify that the employee is enrolled in the correct benefit program, because you can only enroll participants in benefit plans that are associated with their assigned benefit program.
Using individual benefit pages, enroll the participant in all appropriate benefit plans within the benefit program.
When you enroll employees in health, life, savings, FSA, and Canadian pension benefit plans, you also enroll dependents and assign beneficiaries.
Note. You should set up that data before you start enrollments. That way, for each dependent enrollment and beneficiary assignment, you can prompt for the data once rather than enter it several times.
See Also
Access the Benefit Program Participation page.
Benefit Program |
Enter the benefit program for the employee. Set up a default benefit program on the Pay Group table. If you run a payroll before you enter a benefit program, payroll cannot process the employee. You can override the default benefit programs with the correct benefit program. |
Access the Health Benefit Elections page
Health Provider ID |
Tracks the primary care physician information for the employee's health provider. You can enter the name of the employee's doctor, an ID number, or any other format the health provider may require. |
Previously Seen |
Select to indicate that the employee is a current patient of the indicated physician. |
Other Covrg (other coverage) |
(USF) This check box indicates the dependent has another active insurance plan. |
Insurance Name |
(USF) Enter the name of the other insurance plan. |
FEHB Ind (Federal Employee Health Benefits indicator) |
(USF) This check box indicates the dependent in enrolled in FEHB. |
Access the Life/ADD Elections page.
Coverage
Smoker |
Smoker is selected if you have indicated that the dependent is a smoker in the Dependent/Beneficiary - Personal Profile page. On this page, the Smoker check box is a display-only field. When Smoker is selected, the system uses the age-graded rates that have been defined for smokers when calculating the employee's life benefit cost. |
Coverage Options
Use these group boxes to define plan coverage and the benefits base calculation rules.
These sections are active only if, in the Life and AD/D Plan Table page, you indicate that Coverage should be Specified in Employee Record.
Factor and Flat Amount |
Define coverage as either a flat amount only or a factor times benefits base/salary + flat amount. In the latter case, enter both a flat amount and a factor. |
Times |
Enter the rate with which the life or AD/D plan calculations are performed. Select either the Annual Rate (the employee's pay rate) or Annual Benefits Base Rate. |
Dependent/Beneficiaries
ID |
Select the beneficiary ID. The selection list includes all of the beneficiaries that you set up for the employee using the Dependent/Beneficiary Data pages. Only beneficiaries that you identified as Beneficiary or Both (beneficiary or dependent) can be selected. To delete a dependent enrollment, position the cursor at the line for the dependent that you want to delete and click Delete. |
Percent of Benefit and Flat Amount |
Define the distribution benefit as a percent of benefit or a flat amount. If you enter a flat amount and more than one beneficiary, select one of the beneficiaries to receive any excess funds. Select the beneficiary by selecting the Excess check box. |
Contingent |
(Optional) Indicate whether a beneficiary is primary or contingent (secondary to a primary beneficiary) by selecting this check box. If you set up a primary beneficiary to receive 100 percent of the benefit, all other beneficiaries have Contingent selected. |
Note. If you are working with a dependent life plan, add dependent IDs for all of the dependents that will be covered by the plan.
In dependent life plans, the dependents are covered by life insurance, and the employee is the beneficiary.
If you have defined the coverage method of the Life or AD/D plan that you're working with to be the Sum of Dependent Coverage in the Life and AD/D Plan Table, the Percent of Benefit field is not available for entry.
The totals for all beneficiaries must equal 100 percent. If they do not, the system displays an error message and does not
allow you to save your entries. To correct the entry, change one or more of the percentages so that the totals are equal
to 100 percent.
Access the Update Annual Ben Base Rates page.
Annual Benefits Base Rate Type |
Select the ABBR type. ABBR types are defined on the ABBR Type page. |
Annual Benefits Base Rate |
Enter the amount of the ABBR. Note. The Primary ABBR can only be set in the Job component. |
Access the Disability Benefit page.
Access the Savings Plan Elections page.
Before Tax Investment and After Tax Investment
Flat Amount and Percent of Earnings |
Define investment contributions as a flat amount or percent of earnings. The system compares the Percent of Earnings to the percent of gross limits for employee before- and after-tax investment values. The system also verifies that the sum of the before- and after-tax investment values does not exceed the overall investment limit percentage that you defined for the savings benefit plan on Savings Plan Table. |
Dependent/Beneficiaries
ID |
Select the beneficiary ID. The selection list includes the beneficiaries that you set up for the employee using Dependent/Beneficiary Information component. To delete a dependent enrollment, position the cursor at the line for the dependent that you want to delete and click the delete button. |
Beneficiary Percentage |
Enter the percent of benefit for each beneficiary. |
Note. The total for all beneficiaries must equal 100 percent. If it does not, the system displays an error message and does not allow you to save your entry. To correct the entry, change one or more of the percentages so that total is equal to 100 percent.
Investments
Investment Option |
Select an investment option and allocate an investment percentage. Investment percentages must total 100 percent before they can be saved into the system. If there is more than one investment option associated with the chosen employee's savings plan, add more rows. |
Rollover Options
You can enter rollover options only if Specified at Employee Level is selected on Savings Plan Table — Rollover of Funds page.
Enter the Before Tax to and After Tax to rollover Plan Type, Benefit Plan, Deduction, and (if applicable) Deduction Class in the appropriate fields.
Access the Leave Plans (USA) or the Leave Plans page.
Note. The Leave Plans page for Canadian and International users is identical to the page for U.S. users with the exception that it does not offer the option of choosing the FMLA (Family Medical Leave Act) benefit plan type.
Access the FSA Benefits (USA) or the FSA Benefit (CAN) page.
Note. The FSA Benefits (CAN) page is essentially the same as the page for U.S. users with two exceptions. It offers a choice between Canadian Health Care and Canadian Retirement Counseling plan types (plan types 65 and 66) instead of Health and Dependent Care plan types (plan types 60 and 61), and it displays a Carryforward option of either Claim or Credit, if applicable.
Contribution Level
Annual Pledge |
Enter the employee’s annual pledge amount. |
Credit Rollover Included in Pledge |
Used by Benefits Administration. It displays the amount of the excess benefits credits that have been assigned to an FSA plan at the end of a plan year. The Benefits Administration system automatically provides the Credit Rollover Included in Pledge from the previous year, if you have designated that excess credits should be assigned to FSA plans in the Benefit Program Table. |
Empl Contribution Override (employee contribution override) |
If Payroll for North America or Payroll Interface is not implemented, this is optional. Enter a value to have the system use this amount to calculate the employee's FSA contribution. Leave the field blank to have the system use the Annual Pledge amount to calculate the employee’s FSA contribution. |
Account Information
The system reflects the FSA Account Status of the employee's FSA plan, as well as the employee's FSA Contributions YTD (contributions year-to-date).
Employees cannot transfer FSA funds from one account to another. As a rule, unused funds in an account at the end of a plan year are transferred to the employer.
Carryforward
Appears for Canadian Pension Plans. This value is automatically set to the value that you entered for the Employer Carryforward Choice in the FSA Benefits Table (Canada).
Access the Retirement Plans page.
Access the Pension Plan Elections page.
For U.S. users the plan types are 80 or 81. For Canadian users, the plan types are 82 through 87.
Salary for Pension Calculation |
Use to calculate the pension using a salary other than the employee pay rate. |
Voluntary Contributions |
Enter an amount that the employee voluntarily contributes to the pension plan. This is an amount over the amount that you define in the Pension Plan Table. Enter a flat amount or a percent of earnings. |
Dependent/Beneficiaries
ID |
Select the beneficiary ID. The selection list includes the beneficiaries that you set up for the employee using Dependent/Beneficiary Data. To delete a dependent enrollment, position the cursor at the line for the dependent that you want to delete and click Delete. |
Percent of Benefit and Flat Amount |
Define the distribution benefit as a percent of benefit or a flat amount. If you enter a Flat Amount and more than one beneficiary, select one of the beneficiaries to receive any excess funds. Select the beneficiary by selecting the Excess check box. |
Note. The total for all beneficiaries must equal 100 percent. If it does not, the system displays an error message and does not allow you to save your entry. To correct the entry, change one or more of the percentages so that total is equal to 100 percent.
Access the Vacation Benefit page.
When you define vacation buy or sell benefit plans with the Vacation Buy/Sell Table, you define increments for the vacation hours and minimum and maximum amounts that an employee can buy or sell.
Vacation Hours |
Number of hours that an employee buys or sells for the full plan year (a 12-month period). The vacation hours that you enter must be at least the minimum and not more than the maximum numbers of vacation hours that are defined in the Vacation Buy/Sell Table. In addition, they must be entered in the increment specified in the Vacation Buy/Sell Table. |
Goal Balance |
Updated by payroll. The system automatically stops deductions when the Current Goal Balance equals the Goal Balance. |
Vacation Accrual Processed |
During the first payroll processing cycle of the plan year, Payroll calculates bought and sold vacation earnings for each participant. The system automatically selects this check box. You will not see the buy or sell transactions reflected in employee leave balances until after you perform leave accrual processing, at which time, the system clears the check box. |
Note. If you change employee job data after the system performs vacation buy and sell processing, it does not update its calculations based on the new job data. For example, an employee is hired on September 1 and is paid monthly, at a rate of $20.00 per hour. The employee wants to buy 40 hours of vacation. The system assumes a 12-month period in which to spread the deduction. It calculates the Goal Amount as $800.00 (40 hours X $20 an hour), and calculated the pay period deduction as $66.67 (40 hours X $20 an hour/12 monthly periods per year). However, the company wanted the vacation amount based on the hire date. Because there were 4 months remaining in the year, September through December, the company manually calculated and entered $200, or $800 divided by 4.
This section describes how to:
Enroll participants into FEHB benefit programs using the Human Resources PAR process.
Determine FEGLI Plan Coverage, Managing Retirement Coverage, and Designating FICA Status.
Assign FEGLI benefits.
Designate beneficiaries.
Enroll employees in the TSP Agency automated contribution plan.
Access the Benefits/FEHB Data page.
Benefits Control
This group box is used for Benefits Administration processing.
BAS Group ID (benefits administration group identification) |
Applies only if your benefits system uses Benefits Administration. It is used to link the participant to a particular Benefits Administration Group for Benefits Administration processing later. |
Benefit Program |
Automatically set to the benefits program specified for the employee's Pay Group, which you specify in the Position Data page. |
FEHB Eligibility
This group box identifies FEHB eligibility.
Permanent |
Select this option for employees with a career conditional career appointment. Employees are eligible for FEHB if fields 1−9 in the Eligibility group box are also for users of Benefits Administration. Here you enter eligibility values that refer to eligibility configuration values in the Eligibility Rules Table. |
Continuing Coverage |
Select this option for employees who are transferring into a position from another agency without a break in service and for rehires with a break in service of less than 30 days. Employees are eligible for FEHB. |
Temporary Appointment > 1 yr (temporary appointment greater than one year) |
Select this option for an employee with a temporary appointment greater than one year. Employees are eligible for FEHB. |
Temporary Appointment < 1 yr + FedSvc > 1 yr (temporary appointment less than one year plus federal service greater than one year) |
Select this option for an employee with a temporary appointment less than one year and continuous service greater than one year. Employees with this eligibility pay the entire cost of their FEHB coverage. |
Not Eligible |
Select this option for employees ineligible for FEHB plan coverage. Most commonly used for employees with a temporary appointment of less than one year of service. |
Eligibility
This group box is for Benefits Administration only. You enter the eligibility values that refer to the refer to eligibility configuration values in the Eligibility Rules Table.
FEHB
This group box is for Federal users. Enter the future date on which an employee will be eligible for FEHB coverage. Typically, the FEHB Date is one year from the employee's hire date.
Access the FEGLI/Retirement Data/FICA page.
FEGLI
FEGLI Code |
Use this field to select the participant's FEGLI plan coverage, including termination, waiving coverage, and coverage ineligibility. Only active employees are allowed to increase their FEGLI coverage. You can assign beneficiaries and allocate survivor benefits through the Life and AD/D Benefits - Beneficiaries page. Note. When you have two or more FEGLI-related transactions to process for one employee that are effective on the same date, each
one must be processed separately. You must enter the first transaction and save it before inserting a row to process the
second transaction. When a second transaction is entered without saving the first, the system returns a message reporting
that the transaction will be canceled. |
Post 65 Basic Life Reduction |
After federal employees pass the age of 65, their Basic Life plan coverage may be reduced. In the Post 65 Basic Life Reduction field, determine whether the chosen employee's life plan value will be reduced by 50%, 75%, or not at all. |
Living Benefits |
Select for terminally ill federal employees and retirees who have a life expectancy of nine months or less. With living benefits, a full or partial payment of the FEGLI Basic Life Insurance benefit is paid directly to the employee or retiree. When an employee's request for living benefits has been approved by OFEGLI, use the PAR pages to process the election. Select an NOA Code of 805 (Elect Full Living Benefit) or 806 (Elect Partial Living Benefit). When you select Living Benefits to process a partial living benefit, the Coverage Amount field becomes available. After an employee selects living benefits, the only FEGLI code values available to the employee are the following: Terminate All and Waive All Life Insurance. |
Coverage Amount |
Used for employees who elect a partial living benefit. In this field, enter the Basic Insurance Amount (BIA). This is the balance of the coverage amount remaining. |
Retirement
Retirement Plan |
Select the employee's retirement plan coverage. You can select from entire list of available U.S. federal government retirement programs that may be available to your employees. Whether or not your agency actually offers all of these programs depends upon whether or not you have set them up in the Retirement Plan Table and have associated them with the benefit programs that your agency offers. |
FERS Coverage |
Indicate the level of FERS coverage allocated to employees who had federal retirement plan coverage prior to 1984. Employees before 1984, can select from the following valid values: Elected Coverage Under FERS or Not Covered by FERS. All employees, who started federal retirement coverage after 1984, have a FERS Coverage of Automatically Covered by FERS. |
Previous Retirement Coverage |
Employees transferring in from another agency previously covered by a federal benefit plan should select Previously Covered. If the employee was not covered, select Never Covered. |
Annuitant Indicator |
Use for employees who are being rehired from retirement. If a formerly retired employee is receiving an annuity such as a pension plan payment, their pay may be offset by that annuity amount. Determine whether or not the retirement annuity is applicable to the employee's wages. Indicate the former employment status of the employee, whether or not the employee was a retired enlisted or military officer, and the employee’s retirement plan type (CSRS or FERS). |
Annuity Commencement Date |
Date when retirement annuities for a retired or soon-to-be-retired employee began or will begin. The system uses this date when determining how to calculate agency contributions and employee deductions for FEHB and FEGLI during the employee's last pay period. Note. When an employee has worked less than a full pay period, Payroll's Pay Calculation process prorates FEHB and FEGLI deductions according to OPM (Office of Personnel Management) rules. |
CSRS Frozen Service |
Frozen service is the U.S. federal government term for the total years and months of civilian and military service that is creditable in a CSRS component of an FERS employee (retirement plans FERS and FICA, FERS and FICA - Air Traffic Control, FERS and FICA - Special, and FERS and FICA - Reserve Tech), or in the case of a CSRS Offset employee (Retirement plans FICA + CSRS - Partial and FICA + CSRS Special - Partial), the service that would be covered in a CSRS component if the employee ever becomes covered by FERS. In the CSRS Frozen Service field, enter this time span as a four-number code. The first and second positions indicate the number of years, while the third and fourth positions indicate the number of months. For example, a time span of 5 years and 3 months would be entered in CSRS Frozen Service as 0503. |
FICA Status - Employee
Select the employee’s FICA status. Select from the following valid values: E − Exempt, M − Medicare only, or N − Subject.
Once you set up an employee's initial benefit program and plan enrollments through the PAR, you're ready to go on to the individual benefit pages to continue benefit plan enrollments, add plan coverage detail, enroll dependents, and assign beneficiaries. You can make changes in these pages without opening a PAR.
Access the FEGLI Assignments - Assignee page.
Assignee Number |
Designated automatically by the system; it automatically increases by one with each new assignee that you designate for an employee. |
Assignee Name, National ID, and Assignee Share (Pct) (assignee share percentage) |
Enter the information for each assignee. The total assignee shares for all assignees associated with an employee should equal 100. |
Once you enter assignee information and save it, the system selects the Assigned check box in the FEGLI - Elections page for coverage that has been assigned, with the exception of FEGLI plan options that have been Waived. When an employee elects a partial living benefit, the BIA is assigned along with any optional insurance. This is with the exception of Option C - Family coverage.
Access the FEGLI Assignments - Assignee Benef page.
Assignee Beneficiary Number |
The system designates and automatically increases by one for each beneficiary added to an assignee. |
Assignee Name, Relationship, and Benef Share (Pct) (benefit share percentage) |
Enter the information for each assignee. |
Same Address as Assignee |
Select this check box if the beneficiary shares this information with the assignee. While this check box is selected, the Address and Phone Information fields are unavailable. |
Access the TSP - Agency Basic page.
Enter the Effective Date. By default, the system sets Participation Election to Elect and the Elect Date to the system date.
Use Benefit Plan to enroll the employee in the TSP 1% Agency Contribution plan. TSP 1% Agency Contribution plans have a plan type of 7Z.
Employees typically must complete a waiting period of two open seasons after their hire date before they can be enrolled in the TSP 1% Agency Contribution plan.
Access the TSP Investment Elections page.
Option |
Enter the type of investment in which you are allocating an investment percentage. If there is more than one investment option associated with the chosen employee's savings plan, you can add more rows. |
Percent |
Enter the investment percentage allocated for each Option associated with this savings plan. Investment percentages must total 100 before they can be saved into the system. |
Remember that you enroll dependents and assign beneficiaries when you enroll employees. To terminate a dependent enrollment or beneficiary status, you must enter a row of data with the termination date (just as you do with employees). You make these changes on the benefit enrollment page for the benefit in question, such as Life & AD/D Benefits. You do not make the changes in the Dependent/Beneficiary Information component.
If you try to delete dependent/beneficiary records on benefit election pages that have court orders applied to them, the system informs you that the dependent or beneficiary has a court order that provides a legal right to benefit coverage.
Warning! If you delete dependent/beneficiary data using the Dependent/Beneficiary Information component, you’ll destroy history. Once you change enrollment data, it won’t matter that the dependent or beneficiary data is available in the Dependent/Beneficiary Information component. In fact, it must remain to provide correct historical information.
This section discusses how to:
Run the HIPAA Medical Certificate process.
View HIPAA letter printing dates.
Page Name |
Object Name |
Navigation |
Usage |
RUN_CTL_HIPAA |
Benefits, Reports, Regulatory and Compliance, HIPAA, HIPAA Medical Cert |
Run the report of the history of former employee's group health coverage. |
|
BENEF_LETTER_HIST |
Benefits, Review Employee Benefits, Notification Letters, Notification Letters |
View HIPAA certificate printing for an employee and dependents. |
Access the HIPAA Medical Cert. page.
From Date |
Enter the beginning date of the time period for which you want to generate HIPAA certificates. |
Thru Date |
Enter the ending date of the time period for which you want to generate HIPAA certificates. |
Access the Notification Letters page.