Tell Me it’s Not True! Annual Open Enrollment Approaches for Most

Open enrollment, which often occurs in October or November for calendar year plans, is a time when employees and other eligible individuals can enroll in or make changes to their employer-based health insurance and fringe benefit options. The term has sole reference to health insurance because there is no equivalent in life, property, and casualty insurance. Open enrollment also applies to Medicare, Medicare Advantage Plans, and Medicare Part D prescription drug plans. An individual will only have other opportunities to enroll or to make changes in health coverage under specific circumstances, like HIPAA special enrollment. It’s a busy time for human resources departments and their counsel, as they plan participant communications and their delivery.

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Related Content

• The 2025 Required Annual Benefit Notices to Employees
  Learn more about the participant notices employers must provide annually, like the Medicare Part D, CHIP, and WHCRA notices. All three can be satisfied together by timing their distribution to meet the October 15 Notice of Creditable Coverage deadline. Multiple other notices are not required to be distributed annually—although employers should consider including some of those additional notices with the required annual notice materials.
• Open Enrollment Notices Checklist (Health and Welfare Plans) Reference this checklist to identify participant and beneficiary disclosures that ERISA, the Internal Revenue Code, HIPAA, the Affordable Care Act, and other laws require health and welfare plans to provide annually where compliance is satisfied by providing employee disclosures at initial plan eligibility and with the employer's annual open enrollment materials.
• HIPAA Special Enrollment Rights
  Remember the special enrollment rules. HIPAA amended ERISA to require employer plan sponsors to allow employees to enroll themselves or their eligible dependents in group health plans upon the occurrence of certain specified events (i.e., outside of the sponsor's open enrollment period).

Practical Guidance Updates 
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• Employee Benefits & Executive Compensation Key Legal Developments Tracker (Current)
  Stay informed on new developments.
  • Retirement Plans. IRS issues guidance in the form of questions and answers for section 110 of the SECURE 2.0 Act of 2022, which section allows employers to make matching contributions on account of employees' qualified student loan payments (QSLPs) under section 401(k) plans, section 403(b) plans, SIMPLE IRA plans, and governmental section 457(b) plans. I.R.S. Notice 2024-63.
  • Retirement Plans. Texas district courts together have granted a stay on the effective date of the Department of Labor's 2024 Fiduciary Rule. Fed'n of Ams. for Consumer Choice, Inc. v. United States DOL, 2024 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 131589 (E.D. Tex. July 25, 2024); Council of Life Insurers v. United States DOL, 2024 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 133158 (N.D. Tex. July 26, 2024).
  • Executive, Incentive, and Equity-Based Compensation. Three courts have acted to postpone the September 2024 effective date of the FTC's nationwide prohibition on noncompetes. Ryan LLC v. FTC, 2024 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 117418 (N.D. Tex. July 3, 2024); ATS Tree Servs., LLC v. FTC, 2024 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 129398 (E.D. Pa. July 23, 2024); Chamber of Commerce of the United States v. FTC, 2024 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 81436 (E.D. Tex. May 3, 2024).
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