Your health and peace of mind are essential to your overall wellness and enable you to perform at your very best each day. For this reason, JHU offers you a benefits program that provides a range of coverage options that fit your needs and support all aspects of your life.
Soon you will have the opportunity to make changes to your health and life benefits for 2022. Annual Enrollment dates are Wednesday, Oct. 13, through Friday, Oct. 29. Now is a good time to review your current coverage and take advantage of the enrollment resources available to help you make smart benefits choices for the coming year.
As always, JHU strives to offer comprehensive and valuable benefits to faculty and staff to reinforce its tradition of excellence and to help attract and retain outstanding talent. The university continues to review its health and benefits offerings to identify ways to enhance these programs to better meet the needs of JHU faculty and staff.
The myChoices program for 2022
So you can choose the plan that best meets the needs of you and your family, JHU will offer the same comprehensive medical options for 2022 as for 2021, with modest increases. The university continues to work with providers to manage rising health care costs and, to help mitigate cost increases to faculty and staff members, will absorb a large share of the plans' increases for 2022.
During Annual Enrollment, you are encouraged to review the medical plans available to you and consider whether an option other than the one you have would be more cost-effective for you based on your current needs.
Many of your other benefits offerings, including dental, vision, life and AD&D, and disability insurance, will also remain unchanged. In addition, your voluntary benefits, such as legal services, critical illness insurance, and accident insurance, will continue in 2022 with no need for you to reenroll.
Some important changes and enhancements
To better meet your needs and those of your family, coverage for hearing aids—up to $1,000 per ear every three years with no age limitations—will now be included by the CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield Preferred Provider Organization (PPO) and High-Deductible Health Plan (HDHP) and the EHP Classic Point of Service (POS) plans.
New membership cards will be issued for all medical plans for 2022.
JHU has added a new Identity Theft Protection program to its voluntary offerings. The program, administered by Allstate, can offer you peace of mind as well as valuable services that can help you prevent identity theft and recover your identity if you become a victim.
Many of us became "pet parents" once the global pandemic began, and JHU is pleased to announce the addition of pet insurance through Nationwide. This new voluntary benefit will help you protect your furry family members by managing the rising costs of veterinary care.
During this Annual Enrollment, you will have a one-time opportunity to increase your existing supplemental life insurance coverage by one level up to eight times your annual base salary, to a maximum benefit of $3,000,000, instead of the current limit of four times your annual base salary, or $500,000, without providing evidence of insurability (EOI).
- If you are a newly hired faculty or staff member, you can elect up to four times your annual base salary without completing EOI unless the insurance amount is greater than $500,000.
- If you are not a new hire, and you are electing supplemental life insurance coverage for the first time, EOI will be required for any amount of supplemental life insurance that you elect.
Keep in mind that the university's flexible spending account administrator, Discovery Benefits, is now known as WEX. Those enrolled in an FSA will continue to use the same online account, mobile app, and debit card.
The health care and limited purpose FSA maximum employee contribution will increase for 2022; the amount will be announced by the IRS in October. If you have a remaining balance at the end of 2021, a minimum of $30 up to $550 will automatically roll over for use in 2022. As a reminder, you must re-enroll in the health care FSA or limited purpose FSA and the dependent care FSA each year.
In 2022, you can contribute up to $3,650 per individual and up to $7,300 per family (including the JHU contribution) to the HSA. If you elect to participate in the high-deductible health plan, you must elect a new health savings account contribution amount each year; otherwise, your HSA contribution will be set to $0.
Remember that you must apply or reapply during Annual Enrollment for the Child Care Voucher Program and/or Child Care Scholarship for 2022.
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