Employee Benefits 2006 Open Enrollment and the Change in the Medical Care Flexible Spending Account (FSA) for 2005.

Open Enrollment for 2006 Employee Benefits begins Wednesday, September 28, 2005, at 8 a.m., and ends Wednesday, October 5, 2005, at 12 midnight. Eligible employees may choose to participate in one of eight medical plan options (HMO Staff, HMO, EPO, POS, PPO, CoverageFirst, HDHP or Opt Out) and/or one of three dental plans. Employees may also enroll in vision, short-term disability, long-term disability, life, cancer, hospital income protection, and GAP coverage plans. In addition, employees may enroll in medical and/or dependent care flexible spending accounts (FSAs) during this open enrollment period. Employees who do not want to change any of their current benefit elections do not have to take any action (exception: FSA participation). All FSAs terminate at the end of the plan year. If any employee wants to “continue” participating in an FSA, he/she must make a new FSA election online (or call the Aon helpline) during the Open Enrollment period.

Change in the current Medical FSA program: Due to a recent change in Federal law, employees will now be able to submit receipts for the 2005 plan year for expenses incurred between January 1, 2005, and March 15, 2006. This means that employees who have not incurred medical expenses equaling or exceeding their medical FSA contributions by December 31, 2005, will have until March 15, 2006, to incur such expenses. (Employees now have 14 ½ months to incur medical expenses to equal 12 months of FSA contributions.) The deadline for submitting receipts for reimbursement remains March 31, 2006.

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