December 03, 2018

Looking Ahead to Open Enrollment: Health insurance options for 2019

Looking Ahead to Open Enrollment: Health insurance options for 2019

You will soon receive more information to help you through the insurance selection process for coverage starting April 1, 2019. We anticipate having Open Enrollment details to share by the end of December or the beginning of January. Open Enrollment is usually about two weeks, but this year we will extend the Workday window from February 4 to March 4 to give people more time to make decisions.

Health Insurance
The plan options for next year will be the following:

  1. Existing: Kaiser HMO
  2. Existing: Kaiser Added Choice
  3. New: Kaiser High Deductible Health Plan with a Health Savings Account

The new option, Kaiser High-Deductible Health Plan with a Health Savings Account, is somewhat complicated–more information and outreach to follow–but it will give employees additional opportunities to plan for medical expenses and pay for out-of-Kaiser providers.

Regence health and dental plans will no longer be an option following the dissolution of the multi-school Pioneer Educators Health Trust, which will cease to exist as of March 31, 2019. We received bids from Providence, PacificSource, and Regence that were ultimately not competitive, considering the best interests of Lewis & Clark as a whole. Those currently insured under either of the Regence plans received a detailed email last Friday that discussed the bids and the rationale for the choice of plans moving forward. You can read it here. We are working individually with those affected. We will provide many opportunities for one-on-one help–including through the assistance of an onsite Kaiser transition team–to make sure individuals have all the information they need to make the best decisions.

Dental Insurance
In addition to continuing to offer Willamette Dental and Kaiser Dental, we will now also offer Delta Dental to replace Regence Dental. Delta Dental has full provider overlap with the prior Regence plan. Coverage in this new plan will be the same as Regence, and with slightly lower premiums.

Please contact Helen DeVol in Human Resources at helen@lclark.edu or 503-768-6234 if you have immediate questions or concerns.