Annual Enrollment

Annual enrollment (also known as open enrollment or open season) is a period of time, usually but not always occurring once per year, when employees of U.S. companies and organizations may make additions, changes or deletions to their elected fringe benefit options. In most cases, employees can only make changes in benefits elections during open enrollment or when they have experienced a specific qualifying event. During this time period an employer will typically communicate to all eligible employees what options they have for their benefit program. Often the vendors or insurance providers will be present to explain the details of their products. This can be done either with group presentations, or benefit fairs, or meetings one on one with each employee. As travel expenses continue to rise many vendors and insurance providers have turned to using independent contract enrollers to do the communication on their behalf.

For example, Health Advocate, Inc., a large health advocacy company that references employee benefit plans from over 6,000 employers, has a large push to update their system leading up to open enrollment, typically January 1st of each year. The process is very involved and takes several months as each employer plan may be very different.

Open season is a prominent feature of the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program during which some 3 million Federal civilian employees and retirees may choose among several dozen health insurance plans for the coming year. Open season is scheduled in the fall each year, and plan enrollment decisions take effect in the following calendar year.

Fall open enrollment is also prominent in Medicare, where almost 50 million enrollees can choose to stay in original Medicare, or join or change plans within the Medicare Advantage and Medicare Part D Prescription Drug programs for the coming calendar year.