Special Reports
Open Season Guide
GovernmentExecutive.com's guide to help federal managers, employees and their families navigate the open season for health, dental, vision and flexible spending account benefits. Open season runs from Nov. 10 to Dec. 8.
Health Benefits Program
- 2009 Non-Postal Rates, Health Management Organizations
- 2009 Non-Postal Rates, Fee-for-Service Plans
- 2009 Postal Rates, Health Management Organizations
- 2009 Postal Rates, Fee-for-Service Plans
- General information
- Plan comparison tool
- Health insurance glossary
Dental and Vision Insurance Program
- 2009 Dental Premiums
- 2009 Vision Premiums
- General information on the dental program
- General information on the vision program
Flexible Spending Accounts
Health Plan Tools, Calculators and Report Cards
- National Committee for Quality Assurance, a non-profit organization that rates health insurance programs for consumers.
- Consumer's Checkbook Guide to Health Plans for Federal Employees. Contains ratings of plans for likely out of pocket costs, ratings of HMO and Fee-for-Service plans for customer satisfaction based on independently collected survey data, and much more. Users must pay a fee to access ratings.
- Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, a non-profit that evaluates and accredits more than 15,000 health care organizations and programs in the United States.
- Healthfinder, a Health and Human Services Department site with health news and tips.
RECENT NEWS STORIES
- Political veterans map out recommendations, pitfalls for president-elect (11/07/08)
Brookings Institution report suggests Obama should start with manageable and bipartisan legislative proposals. - Employee groups lay out priorities for next president, Congress (11/07/08)
Organizations will continue to fight the Pentagon's pay overhaul and will push benefits bills, including one to increase the government's share of health premiums. - Analysts debate consequences of a $1 trillion deficit (11/03/08)
Declining revenue and the soaring costs of shoring up the economy could push overspending into new territory. - Report points to delays on Medicare drug pricing audits (10/30/08)
Reviews of 2006 pricing information remain incomplete. - Study: Cost of domestic partner benefits could be limited (10/03/08)
If state-level experiences are any indication, low enrollment would hold costs down. - Federal health premiums to rise 7 percent in 2009 (09/25/08)
Rate hike the highest since 2005; union official calls it discouraging. - OPM opposes domestic partnership benefits bill (09/24/08)
Panel witnesses and lawmakers dispute agency's claim that extending such benefits could lead to insurance fraud. - OPM publishes final rules for dental, vision program (08/26/08)
Notice stipulates that employees cannot be denied enrollment or coverage due to a preexisting dental or vision condition. - New data on federal-private compensation gap rekindles debate (08/14/08)
Think tank says numbers support the case for outsourcing; employee groups say data is broad and meaningless. - Privacy protections strengthened in health IT bill (07/22/08)
But amended version of legislation also states that a "good faith" data disclosure, like a letter sent to the wrong address, would not constitute a privacy breach. - Subpanel votes to hike maximum dependent age for federal health benefits (05/02/08)
Measure raises the maximum age of dependents eligible for the Federal Employees Health Benefits Plan from 22 to 25. - Dozens of federal health plans require high payments for specialty drugs (04/17/08)
Pricey prescription drug coverage for many federal employees could become more common. - OPM adds substance abuse services to federal health plan (04/08/08)
Most employees' insurance will cover a medical procedure that screens for alcohol and drug abuse. - HHS awards network contract to share medical records (03/25/08)
Harris Corp. plans to reuse technology to build an information gateway that ultimately will open to private health care providers. - OPM seeks enhanced hearing benefits in federal health plan (03/21/08)
Move would follow last year's move by most FEHBP carriers to provide hearing benefits to children up to age 22.
