If you are used to open enrollment that ends two days before Thanksgiving, you need to readjust your calendar. This year’s deadline has been moved up four days — giving you until 5 p.m. Friday, Nov. 19, to make your benefits choices for 2022.

A few more opportunities remain between now and the deadline to receive assistance from UC Davis Employee Benefits (including an open forum, online) and UCPath (one-hour webinars). The UC Davis Health Facilitator Program has posted a video and slide show and other resources. See below.

Flu shot policy

Nov. 19 is also the deadline for staff, faculty and students to be vaccinated against the flu or affirmatively decline the flu shot, as specified by an executive order from the Office of the President. UC Davis employees and students are asked to log in to the Health-e-Messaging portal to record their date of vaccination or to fill out and submit the declination form. See the instructions on the Campus Ready Flu Vaccination webpage.

All who decline the flu shot are strongly encouraged to wear face coverings on campus through the end of the flu season even if COVID-19 requirements are loosened.

Open enrollment

This is your opportunity to:

• Enroll in or opt out of UC-sponsored medical, vision, dental and/or legal plans
• Transfer to a different medical or dental plan
• Add or remove eligible family members to/from your medical, dental, vision and/or legal plans
• Enroll or re-enroll in a health and/or dependent care flexible spending account, or FSA. 

If you are doing none of the above, then open enrollment is simple: You need take no action. Your benefit elections — except for health and dependent care FSAs — will carry over from this year to next year. Note about flexible spending accounts: They do not renew automatically. If you wish to continue with an FSA, you must re-enroll.

Medical plans offered for 2022 are the same as 2021, with moderate price increases — $0 to $47 per month across all pay bands for employees of UC Davis, UC Davis Health and UC Agriculture and Natural Resources.

Important note about premiums for the UC Blue & Gold health maintenance organization or HMO: The correct rates for UC Davis, UC Davis Health and ANR employees are shown on UC Davis’ open enrollment website and on the insert that should have come with the open enrollment packet delivered by U.S. mail to home addresses. These rates are subsidized, to keep them equal to the rates charged by the Kaiser HMO. The rates published by UC Human Resources (in print and online) do not reflect the subsidies that apply only to employees of UC Davis, UC Davis Health and ANR.

Other benefits are being enhanced with no changes in premiums.

Resources

UC Davis Employee Benefits has scheduled:

• One-on-one meetings — Confidential sessions of up to 10 minutes via Zoom, 10 a.m.-noon this Friday (Nov. 12). Sign in to one of four Zoom sessions (each one is for a different segment of the alphabet, based on first letter of last name). Find the log-in information here.
• Open forum on Zoom — UC Davis Employee Benefits will answer questions submitted via chat, 1-3 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 18. Find the log-in information here.

UCPath will present three more webinars, each including a Q&A and a demonstration of the new ALEX benefits counselor, and has also posted an online open enrollment course. Choose a webinar below and click on the link to register.

• Tuesday, Nov. 9 — 2-3 p.m.
• Thursday, Nov. 10 — 7-8 p.m.
• Tuesday, Nov. 16 — 2-3 p.m.

The UC Davis Health Facilitator Program has prepared an overview of 2022 medical plans, including a video and slide show. Look for the overview and more information here.