FAQ-Health Premiums
My appointment ended. Why was I charged for health insurance?
Why did you bill me for multiple months of health insurance premiums in a single transaction?
I removed dependents from my health plans but I was charged anyway.
I changed my bank and have a different account. How do I update Benelogic with new account information?
How do I pay the health insurance premium for my dependents?
My appointment ended. Why was I charged for health insurance?
To end benefits, we must receive an approved termination form that your department administrator initiates. If your department administrator did not know that your appointment was ending, or you left early without notifying anyone, this term form may not have been processed. Check in with the department admin to see if this is the reason.
Maybe the term form was received, but it was late. Our billing data is pulled on the 5th of the month. If your term form was not received by the 4th, then you are considered in active status and current health premium charges apply. No worries, if your term form was processed after the 5th of the month for the past month, credits will appear on the following month's billing and you will be credited on the 22nd of the following month.
If your appointment ended mid-month and you're wondering why we charged you for a full month's premiums, it's because there are no partial month's premiums allowed by our vendors. If you are insured on the 1st of the month, you are insured for the whole month.
Why did you bill me for multiple months of health insurance premiums all at once?
Please remember that we retro-collect premiums. Our billing data is processed on the 5th of each month. To be on the bill for the month you started your appointment (for example, your appointment starts in January, and you are also on the January bill), you would need to submit your benefit elections by the 4th of the month. Most postdocs cannot finalize enrollment until after their appointment has started and the current billing data is processed.
Typically, a postdoc can finalize enrollment before the 4th of the month following their appointment start date, and billing captures their enrollment data on that month's bill. Even though you are not technically enrolled in benefits, you have retro-coverage back to your appointment start date, and thus, we collect premiums back to your appointment start date.
Suppose you need medical services before enrolling in benefits. In that case, you may have to pay out of pocket for services, but you would be reimbursed monies spent minus the copay for the type of service you received once you are in the carrier's database.
I removed dependents from my health plans, but I was charged anyway.
Our billing data is processed on the 5th of the month. Whatever coverage level you have on the 5th is what we are billed. If you processed a change request to drop a dependent from your health plan after the 5th of the month, that change is captured on the following month's bills, and you will receive a credit for the premium collected.
For example, on March 5, your medical insurance coverage level is Postdoc + Family, but your family left the country on February 25. Maybe you could not process the change request to drop your dependents until March 7. March's bills would have a premium for Postdoc + Family that we'd collect, but April's bill would have a credit for Postdoc + Family because of the change request to drop dependents. We will issue a credit to your bank account for that amount on April 22.
I changed my bank and have a different account. How do I update Benelogic with new account information?
We have instructions on how to update Benelogic with new banking information
How do I pay the health insurance premium for my dependents?
Health insurance premiums are a post-tax cost to you. There are no automatic deductions from your wages or stipend to pay the cost of health insurance premiums. The health premium payment process is an automatic direct debit from your checking or savings account.
To submit any enrollment into benefits requiring payment from you, you will need to know your bank account information, including routing and account numbers. If you need help identifying these two numbers, please review this document.
On the 22nd of each month, the Office of Postdoctoral Affairs (OPA) will automatically deduct the cost of your health premiums from your bank account. At the time of the first deduction, OPA will collect payment for any retroactive amount due. Additionally, if the 22nd falls on a weekend or a holiday, the funds will be debited the previous business day. Please note that the actual deduction date may differ depending on your banking institution.
The banking information report is processed on the 16th of each month. You need to update Benelogic with new banking information on or before the 15th of the month for the report to capture changed data.
We cannot accept cash, checks, or credit or debit cards to pay premiums.