The arrival of fall at JHU means not only crisp air, autumn hues, and fresh faces on campus but that it's time for you to make your benefits decisions for the coming year. This year's Annual Enrollment dates are Wednesday, Oct. 12, through Friday, Oct. 28. 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. From health insurance to wellness programs to tuition assistance and more, the university's offerings are designed to help faculty and staff pursue productive and fulfilling professional and personal lives.
The myChoices program for 2023
Most of your benefit options are unchanged for the coming year. However, you will see enhancements to some programs that are important to both you and JHU, such as the employee assistance program and tuition assistance program. These changes are designed to better meet your needs and help you attain your life goals.
JHU will generally offer you the same choice of comprehensive medical options for 2023. However, as previously communicated, the nonbargaining unit BlueChoice HMO (available to current participants only) will be phased out as of January 2023 for nonbargained employees. It will continue to be available for bargaining unit employees. If you participate in this option, you will hear more about this change in the months ahead.
While the university and its providers continue to work together to manage rising health care costs, you will see some modest increases in the share of the cost of your health care benefits for 2023. JHU will absorb a large share of the increases to help mitigate cost increases to faculty and staff members. During Annual Enrollment, you are encouraged to review the medical plan options available to you and consider whether another option might be more cost-effective based on your needs.
Many of your other benefits offerings, including dental, vision, life, accidental death and dismemberment, and disability insurance are unchanged. In addition, your voluntary benefits—legal coverage; critical illness, accident, and pet insurance; and identity theft protection—will continue in 2023 with no need for you to re-enroll.
What's new and notable?
Effective July 1, 2022, the employee assistance program—now called the Johns Hopkins Employee Assistance Program, or JHEAP (formerly mySupport or FASAP)—is administered by Corporate Counseling Associates, or CCA. Enhancements include better support with finding vendors and case management, more diverse provider networks, more free counseling sessions, and improved service.
The Tuition Assistance Program has been enhanced to help make higher education more attainable and affordable for employees. (See Making Higher Education More Affordable.)
The maximum employee contribution to the health care and limited purpose flexible spending account, or FSA, is expected to increase for 2023. It's important to plan your contributions carefully. For 2023, any unused funds of $30 up to $570 at year end will be rolled over for use in 2024. As a reminder, you must re-enroll in the health care FSA or limited purpose FSA and the dependent care FSA each year. Remember: To expedite the substantiation process, save your receipts even if you are using the debit card.
Contributions to the health savings account (available to participants in the high-deductible health plan medical option) will increase for 2023: up to $3,850 per individual and up to $7,750 per family (including the JHU contribution). If you are currently enrolled, remember that you must re-set your HSA contribution for 2023.
As the university is committed to helping families with affordable and high-quality child care, it will be increasing the award amounts for its child care scholarships for 2023 and has made adjustments to the adjusted gross income requirements.
JHU is also committed to helping employees achieve financial well-being. The transition to TIAA is now complete, and the university is now announcing that effective January 2023, it's introducing another enhancement to the retirement program: a new Roth contribution option. The Roth option will allow you to contribute to the JHU retirement plan on an after-tax basis. Look for more information on this option, and when you will be able to make contribution elections, in the coming months.
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