DH missed open enrollment deadline. UGH!

[khalloc]

So I just cut down to part time and work 30 hours a week and am no longer eligible for health/dental insurance thru my company. This happened in September and at that time DH told me that he already had the kids and I on his dental insurance. So I never got a letter from my HR department saying I lost my benefits.

So last week DH realized that his email had started screwing up and he was missing some emails, including the on with the open enrollment information at his work! So he missed signing up for dental/health insurance! Luckily they auto-enrolled him into health insurance again since he already had it this year. But apparantly he didnt have dental insurance (I was the only one carrying that) and so we've been without dental since September and we dont have dental insurance again for 2014! DD is 8 now and might need some orthodontia work this coming year. She'll at least need a consultation (which is probably free).

DH emailed and called his HR department. they are USELESS! They never called him back and emailed and basically said that open enrollment has passed, too bad! I'm considering calling the HR director over and over again...but what would I say? This is a large company and this guy works in NC and I am in VT.

WWYD? I guess in the grand scheme of things we'll have to pay for cleanings out of pocket for the year (like 4 total for the kids and 2 for me and probably just 1 for DH since he just had one). But I am worried about the what-ifs. I think DH pays like $50 a month for dental so he could just save that I guess.

Do you think its worth calling the HR guy myself and trying to get him to let us add dental? Or should we just calm down about it...its not that big of a deal, right? and just have DH put what he would have paid for dental into one of those health accounts that is tax free and we should just pay our dental bills from there?

[lizzywednesday]

Call your company & get the letter confirming a change in employment status & loss of your dental benefits.

That should trigger another open enrollment period for your DH to enroll you & the kids in his dental plan, effective immediately, and those changes should carry over to next year.

Does HR also handle Benefits? In my company (large, multinational), Benefits is an HR function, but it's administered by a different department & the local HR people are more apt to refer an employee with this kind of question to the Benefits arm rather than treating it as a local HR issue.

[egoldber]

We never have dental insurance. We use FSA money instead. Our dental insurance is expensive for what we get. We pay OOP for everything and then get reimbured through the FSA. Some health insurance plans have a small amount of dental coverage, you should check. Our health insurance would cover any serious issue that would involve oral surgery.

Also, most dental plans have waiting periods for orthodontia coverage and have very low lifetime max. The plans we are offered only cover $2K total after a 2 year waiting period.

[khalloc]

I thought it was too late to get the letter from my company. But I guess I could try.

[trales]

I would not sweat it too much. He would be paying $600 for the dental benefits, and you are looking at the most $750 in cleanings. Tell the dentist that this year and this year only, you will not be doing x rays or anything else, b/c of an insurance situation you will be only doing basic cleanings with the hygienist. They should understand. Your teeth will be fine, the kids will be fine. You have more things to stress about than this.

[tabegle]

If nothing else, there are dental discount plans available. If there is going to be a lot of fillings involved, it might be worth it. Otherwise, I agree with the previous poster to just skip the xrays this year.

I know we get a lot of junk mail here with introductory offers for free xray and initial consult. If there's an issue, maybe you can snag one of those. I really do hate how open enrollment closes so far in advance of when the new period starts!

[KrisM]

Call your company & get the letter confirming a change in employment status & loss of your dental benefits.

That should trigger another open enrollment period for your DH to enroll you & the kids in his dental plan, effective immediately, and those changes should carry over to next year.

Does HR also handle Benefits? In my company (large, multinational), Benefits is an HR function, but it's administered by a different department & the local HR people are more apt to refer an employee with this kind of question to the Benefits arm rather than treating it as a local HR issue.

Isn't that like giving birth, getting married, etc and has a 30 day limit? So, she had 30 days from losing her insurance to add herself somewhere else.


I'd agree that the dental benefit isn't huge most likely anyway. Our cleanings are about $60 each, so for 5 of us, that's $600/year. We only pay $25/month for dental and eye, so it works, but it's not a huge benefit. Our ortho limit is $1500.

[lizzywednesday]

I thought it was too late to get the letter from my company. But I guess I could try.

You can work the system. Technically, you should get the letters right away & you have whatever amount of time, but typically a Benefits office will work with you to get things done.

(I have done this before with my DH before we were married, using my company's willingness to cover "domestic partners" to our advantage. We enrolled him as a DP several months after he'd lost his job by using "flexibly dated" letters of loss of coverage.)

[khalloc]

Ok, I emailed my HR person and explained how DH thought we already had dental with him and how now he missed the open enrollment date and I asked if it was too late to get a letter stating that I lost my benefits. I didnt ask them to fudge the date on the letter. Should I? I dont want to get anyone in trouble.

I suppose I could change it after but I dont want to get in trouble or get DH in trouble. I think we will just go without dental insurance if this doesnt work. I havent had a filling in like 15 years and the kids have never had fillings or needed anything more than a cleaning.

DD just has a small mouth and her teeth are coming in on top of one another but back in June the dentist said he'll send her for a consult with an orthodontist. But that her mouth is still growing so they might just let it go for a bit. I had adult teeth removed as a child (like age 9 or 10) because my mouth was too small. So I'm pretty sure she will need something done.

My HR woman sent me my COBRA letter and said "that should do the trick" but it has the date of August 31st on it so I am worried that DH's work wont accept that since it will be too late.

[NJ_Mom2011]

Isn't that like giving birth, getting married, etc and has a 30 day limit? So, she had 30 days from losing her insurance to add herself somewhere else.


I'd agree that the dental benefit isn't huge most likely anyway. Our cleanings are about $60 each, so for 5 of us, that's $600/year. We only pay $25/month for dental and eye, so it works, but it's not a huge benefit. Our ortho limit is $1500.

:yeahthat: I think that many employment benefits have 2 week payment of advance payment of premiums. So, say that you had a change of status on the week of October 10. It wouldn't affect your dental coverage until the week of October 24, as you had already paid 2 weeks in advance. Employers often have this cushion just in case employees get fired, quit, or become part-time. There would be continuous coverage during this transitional period, as HR gets ready to have these benefits sent to Cobra.

Even though technically dental benefits don't need to go through Cobra, most employers have that option. With your change of status, I imagine you can continue dental through Cobra, or obtain coverage through your husband having a letter from your HR showing change of status. I have been able to get coverage from my husband's employer even without this letter.

As a last resort, you may try to get dental coverage from healthcare.gov, if your husband's employer refuses to provide coverage.

[lizzywednesday]

...

My HR woman sent me my COBRA letter and said "that should do the trick" but it has the date of August 31st on it so I am worried that DH's work wont accept that since it will be too late.

See if it helps. If it does, great; if not, just roll with it and be a pest for open enrollment next year.

[khalloc]

See if it helps. If it does, great; if not, just roll with it and be a pest for open enrollment next year.

My HR woman sent me the letter and I wrote back asking if it would work since the date was August 31st. And she replied that should could not change the dates. Yikes! I told her I didnt expect her too I just wasnt sure if she knew if I had already passed the deadline. Looks like I have (since my coverage ended August 31st) but I sent the letter along to my DH so hopefully he will try once more. I'd feel better to have coverage, but its not the end of the world.

[onyx8]

If you can't get dental coverage, ask your dentist if they offer a discount if you pay in full in cash when services are rendered.

[BabyBearsMom]

You should still be able to enroll using a "life event" (change in job, birth of child, death can trigger this). It isn't so far from the event if you switched in September and it is the beginning of November now.

[onyx8]

At my company, you can change benefits due to a qualified status change only within 31 days of that qualifying event. I think that is standard, but check with your DH's company

[dhano923]

You have 30 days from the time your qualifying event occurs to enroll on another insurance plan, like a spouse's plan. Otherwise you have to wait until Open Enrollment. So you had 30 days from August 31st. If you didn't do it then, and didn't do it duringOpen Enrollment, then you have to wait until next OE. Insurance plans (and employers) set their plans up this way to prevent people from getting on/off plans throughout the year.

If you are working 30 hours a week, you should be eligible for benefits through your employer after 1/1/14 as Fulltime under Obamacare is now 30 hours.

[khalloc]

I was wondering about Obamacare and being eligible for benefits. So it really starts on 1/1/2014? Are there rules around that? My employer considers 37.5 hours to be full-time. And now I am working 30 hours. Its a non-profit (private college).

Thanks!

[TwinFoxes]

You have 30 days from the time your qualifying event occurs to enroll on another insurance plan, like a spouse's plan. Otherwise you have to wait until Open Enrollment. So you had 30 days from August 31st. If you didn't do it then, and didn't do it duringOpen Enrollment, then you have to wait until next OE. Insurance plans (and employers) set their plans up this way to prevent people from getting on/off plans throughout the year.


This is how it is with our company.

Does Obama Care cover dental?

[NJ_Mom2011]

Does Obama Care cover dental?

The Affordable Care Act exchange is offering stand-alone dental plans. Some states have platinum plans that offer pediatric dental coverage.

[Mermanaid]

I probably wouldn't sweat the dental. That said ... technically a benefit department can change your 2014 elections through December 31, 2013 and maintain qualified status because the elections are not yet effective. They communicate the open enrollment period dates because they have to have a cut off sometime or the files sent to vendors, etc. get very messy and they would have 1,000 employee calls (okay, maybe an exaggeration). It's once the benefits are effective that the life event rules, etc. become VERY important and changes without a life event could cause the plan to lose qualified status. Frankly, it's pretty easy at this point for an HR rep to log into the HRIS and fix it for you. The problem lies in when the file with the updates will be sent to the vendor to note your enrollment/change.

If you are adamant about having the dental insurance, I would reach out to the HR Director and just confirm why they can't update the election since there was a miscommunication and the benefits are not yet effective. Reiterate that you are not asking for special treatment for 2013 -- just to make sure coverage is available in 2014.

[ahisma]

You'll have to read the plan documents for your DH's plan. Some companies opt to provide more than a 30 day notification window for qualifying life events.

Also, was your DH notified of the enrollment window? There are guidelines regarding online notifications. You may want to look into that and have him press his HR department.

[ckso]

Just a thought and of course it depends on how much your employer is charging you for Cobra. Usually dental insurance is pretty cheap .

Anyways you can sign up for cobra which is retroactive to the date you lost coverage. Pay for the 2 months (sept and October) and then request to end cobra effective end of October

Then request for coverage through your husband's employer due to loss of coverage as a qualifying event which would be effective 10/31 so your new insurance would be effective 11/1


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[Momit]

We never have dental insurance. We use FSA money instead. Our dental insurance is expensive for what we get. We pay OOP for everything and then get reimbured through the FSA. Some health insurance plans have a small amount of dental coverage, you should check. Our health insurance would cover any serious issue that would involve oral surgery.

Also, most dental plans have waiting periods for orthodontia coverage and have very low lifetime max. The plans we are offered only cover $2K total after a 2 year waiting period.

We experimented this year by dropping dental and paying with our HSA account. We came out about the same doing it this way, since our plan was relatively pricey but still left us paying OOP quite a bit. Just a thought if it doesn't work out to get coverage.

We had a couple of glitches with our medical where we missed a deadline and both times HR was able to help us sort it out. Hope it turns out that way for you as well.

[khalloc]

Just a thought and of course it depends on how much your employer is charging you for Cobra. Usually dental insurance is pretty cheap .

Anyways you can sign up for cobra which is retroactive to the date you lost coverage. Pay for the 2 months (sept and October) and then request to end cobra effective end of October

Then request for coverage through your husband's employer due to loss of coverage as a qualifying event which would be effective 10/31 so your new insurance would be effective 11/1


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If I wanted COBRA I needed to sign up by 10/31.

[ckso]

If I wanted COBRA I needed to sign up by 10/31.

I thought your hours changed in September which usually means you're still covered for the month of September and then you have 60 days to elect Cobra based on the date they sent you notice. Or maybe it was effective 9/1 and they terminated your coverage effective 8/31?

[NJ_Mom2011]

I thought your hours changed in September which usually means you're still covered for the month of September and then you have 60 days to elect Cobra based on the date they sent you notice. Or maybe it was effective 9/1 and they terminated your coverage effective 8/31?

OP said her coverage terminated effective 8/31.