UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Benefits Open Enrollment begins on Friday, Nov. 1, and will run through 5 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 15. During that time, eligible employees will have the opportunity to change or update their benefit elections for 2020. To help employees understand their benefit options, Penn State Human Resources has provided the following resources.
New — Benefits Mentor tool
The Benefits Mentor is designed to help employees determine which health care plan is best for them. This tool is available in Workday under the benefits worklet, and IBM Watson has provided a video tutorial on how to use the tool.
“We’re excited to launch a new, third-party decision support tool, Benefits Mentor, which will use an employee’s prior and current years’ claims to help calculate which health care plan option is the lowest cost for them, assuming they incur similar health care expenses and employee premium contributions during 2020,” said Greg Stoner, senior director of compensation and benefits.
Medical and prescription coverage
Employees will still have two health plan options, the PPO and PPO Savings plans.
“We’re very pleased to announce that for the third consecutive year, the percentages used to determine faculty and staff premium contributions under the PPO and PPO Savings plans will remain the same," said Stoner. "Employees and their families will also benefit from lower prescription drug costs for medications considered to be part of a preventive drug list."
Webinars and live presentations
There are live presentations scheduled where members of Penn State's benefits team as well as representatives from Aetna and CVS Caremark will be in attendance to answer questions. For those who cannot attend an in-person presentation, there’s an on-demand version of the presentation as well as several upcoming live webinars.
Video tutorials
To help faculty and staff complete the Benefits Open Enrollment process in Workday, the WorkLion Management Office has prepared step-by-step video tutorials. Employees should select “Standard Access Account” when following the link. The tutorials will give employees a guided tour of the new look of open enrollment in Workday.
Online resources
In order to centralize all the 2020 benefits information, HR has built a dedicated Open Enrollment section on the HR website, as well as within the WorkLion Knowledge Base. On both sites, individuals will find information on all the benefit options for 2020.
Employees with any questions should reach out to HR Services at 814-865-1473.