Annual Enrollment correction period

HISD Benefits annual enrollment ends Nov. 19, but there is a correction period. Any changes or corrections to your 2022 benefit elections need to be made by Nov. 30, 2021. You may contact the Benefits Service Center at 1-877-780-4473 or visit HISDBenefits.org for questions or more information. 

You will have until 7:00 p.m. CST on Nov. 30, 2021, to contact the Benefits Service Center about changes or until 11:00 p.m. CST on Nov. 30, 2021, to make final updates online. 

Whether you are new to HISD or returning to the district, we have resources, information, and useful tools to guide you through your benefits information. Even if you are not enrolling in some of the benefit options, as an employee of the district, you have access to benefits such as the Employee Assistance Plan and resources that may be useful. Be sure to visit the 2022 Benefits Guide for information about all the benefits available to you next year.

Watch the new video, “What’s New in 2022 Benefits,” featuring your HISD Benefits Team by visiting this link. Also available are the following instructional videos listed on the How-To Videos page:

• How to Enroll in Your 2022 Benefits
• How to Change Your Life Insurance Beneficiaries
• How to Change Your Aflac Plans Beneficiaries
• How to Change your TRS Beneficiaries

Aetna is our medical provider for 2022, along with a host of other benefits providers. Please look through the Benefits website for detailed information about plan options, tools you can use, and other benefits materials. We look forward to hearing from you during annual enrollment 2022, which takes place Nov. 1 –19, 2021.

• The Medical plan:  Beginning in 2020, we added Accountable Care Organizations to our plan options, and we added copays to the Kelsey ACO plan options. Many employees have elected one of the ACO plans to manage their overall health plan costs while providing excellent health care options. The rate increases are shown in the chart below. These are per paycheck deductions over 24 pay periods. More information is available on the Benefits website.

Tier	Kelsey Basic ACO	Memorial Hermann Basic ACO	TX Medical Neighborhood Basic	Kelsey Plus ACO	Memorial Hermann Plus ACO	TX Medical Neighborhood Plus
Ee only	19.25	21.18	33.59	38.79	42.67	67.63
Ee + Spouse	100.19	110.21	174.68	135.25	148.78	225.32
Ee + Child(ren)	96.37	106.01	168.05	130.10	143.11	217.47
Ee + Family	173.26	190.60	302.12	233.90	257.30	365.43

• Life Insurance. Rates for Employee Supplemental Life Insurance have decreased overall about 20%. Please review your finances and see if you need to add or increase your employee supplemental life insurance coverage. At annual enrollment time, you are able to increase your life insurance, if you are already enrolled, by one times your annual salary without Evidence of Insurability up to five times your annual salary or $600,000, whichever requirement is met first.
• Prepaid Legal. For $3.00 more per paycheck, regardless of the tier you are in (Employee only, Employee + Family), you can select the Plus Plan and it will include your parents. You can review more information under Prepaid Legal in this benefits guide.  

Next let’s review some things to remember as you enroll or change your benefits.

• Beneficiaries: Please be sure to review your beneficiaries. If you need to make an immediate beneficiary change, you may do so by calling the Benefits Service Center at 1-877-780-4473 or you can go online to your benefits enrollment site. Under manage Information, you can edit or add your updated beneficiary information for basic life and supplemental life. If you want to add beneficiaries to your Aflac plans, please go to www.HISDBenefits.org >Resources>Forms and look for the Aflac Beneficiary Form. Complete the form and send it to Aflac (address is on the form). Any changes in your beneficiary information will be effective at the Benefits Service Center on the day you make the change. For Aflac, any beneficiary changes are effective as of the date you sign the form. Also, you may want to update your TRS Beneficiaries, which must be done through TRS. Additional information and forms can be found on the TRS website.
• Eligible Dependents under HISD plans. Every year it is important to review your eligible dependents, as they are the only dependents who can be covered under your plans. It is your responsibility to change coverage levels if you have over-age dependents (life, accident, hospital indemnity, critical illness, cancer, etc.).
  • If you have a dependent who no longer qualifies as an eligible dependent, you must notify the Benefits Service Center at 1-877-780-4473 immediately or within 30 days of the loss of eligibility. If you fail to do so, we will remove the dependent when we discover the ineligible dependent while auditing our plans, and there will be no refund of premiums paid. If you cover your grandchild under the HISD benefits, you must have either a legal custody document or legal guardianship document that allows you to cover them.
  • Dependent Verification Services (DVS)/Life Events audits. If you add a dependent to your medical, dental, or vision plan, you will be asked to verify that dependent. You have 30 days to verify dependents once they are added. You will receive letters from the DVS department of the Benefits Service Center, and you will receive email reminders asking you to verify your dependents. Please follow the instructions on the form and respond by the deadline you are given in your letter. You will need to provide documentation such as a birth certificate if adding a child or marriage certificate if adding a spouse. If mailing documentation, please send in copies as these will not be returned to you. If you are adding dependents as a life event, you will also be asked to verify the life event. The information you receive from the DVS will tell you exactly which documents you need to provide. All emails will come from the Benefits Service Center at ADP.

Flexible Spending Accounts. You may choose to enroll in the Healthcare Flexible Spending Account and the Dependent Care Flexible Spending Account if you would like these benefits in 2022. The maximum for healthcare is $2,750, and the maximum for dependent care if $5,000. The administrator is PayFlex, and if you have been issued a debit card for the healthcare flexible spending account, that debit is good through the expiration date on the card, so there is no need to request a new card every year.