2023 Annual Open Enrollment – Oct. 24 to Nov. 7


Oct. 10, 2022

Health, wellness, and insurance benefits for you and your loved ones – at all stages of life.

Open Enrollment for 2023 is just around the corner! The enrollment period begins Monday, Oct. 24 and ends Monday, Nov. 7.

This is the time for you to review your current benefits coverage, and in Workday, select the benefit options that best meet your needs for 2023. The selections made during this period are for benefits from Jan. 1 through Dec. 31, 2023.

We’re kicking off this Open Enrollment season with the launch of the 2023 Open Enrollment website and are providing the below overview of what’s new.

For more information, visit the website, attend an Open Enrollment webinar, and read the weekly Gateway Connect newsletter. If you have questions, call the HR Service Center at 213-821-8100 (weekdays from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.) or email uschr@usc.edu.

Please take care of your well-being and each other.

Sincerely,

Felicia A. Washington
Senior Vice President
HR, Equity, and Compliance
James Staten
Senior Vice President, Finance
Chief Financial Officer

cc:Office of the President
President’s Senior Leadership Team
Academic Deans
Provost’s Leadership Team
Academic Senate 
Staff Assembly

Open Enrollment Overview

New and expanded offerings for 2023:

  • Expanded benefits for USC PPO, Trojan Care EPO, and EPO Plus plans:
    • Hearing Aid Services – Up to $2,000 maximum benefit every three years.
    • Maternity Care Program – HealthComp’s Mommies 2-Be (M2B) program, which provides a strong foundation of support for mothers and their babies at no cost.
    • Transitional Services – Facial feminization and masculinization surgery, up to a lifetime maximum of $20,000.
  • New Fertility Benefits for USC PPO, Trojan Care EPO, and EPO Plus plans:Medical services (i.e., artificial insemination, IVF) and fertility drugs up to a lifetime maximum of $10,000 and $15,000 respectively.
  • Increase in Delta Dental benefits: The annual plan maximum increases to $2,000 from $1,500 per person, and the dental implant benefit moves from a $1,500 lifetime maximum to an annual maximum, separate from the $2,000 annual plan maximum.
  • New and expanded voluntary MetLife benefits:
    • Identity and Fraud Protection offers proactive monitoring to alert you and your family to suspicious activity relating to your bank accounts, credit file, Social Security Number, and more.
    • MetLife Legal Plan includes more services – such as identity management, home equity loans, and refinancing – at no additional cost.
    • Pet Insurance (coming Spring 2023) provides protection for your furry family members.
  • Adjusted salary band tiers to lower cost of premiums for the majority.

Don’t forget to:

  • Select and update your life insurance beneficiaries to protect your loved ones.
  • Save $480 on your 2023 medical premiums by completing your Vitality Health Review and Vitality Check between now and Dec. 16, 2022.
  • Get $220 back with a fitness incentive to help pay for qualifying fitness expenses.
  • Save $50 on preventative healthcare costs by filing a claim for your MetLife wellness benefits, if enrolled in MetLife’s Accident, Critical Illness, or Hospital Indemnity policies.
  • Ensure that you are only enrolling eligible dependents as the dependent eligibility verification will commence in early 2023 (see below for details).

Dependent eligibility verification to initiate in early 2023

The previously announced dependent eligibility verification was paused over the last two years during the height of the pandemic, but will be launched in early 2023, requiring all faculty and staff with dependents enrolled in the USC PPO, USC Trojan Care EPO, USC EPO Plus, Kaiser HMO, Anthem HMO, and Anthem MyChoice HMO health plans to submit proof of dependent eligibility. Please take care and only enroll/renew the enrollment of family members who meet the definition of eligible dependents. Please Note: If family members you enroll are found to be ineligible, they will be removed from the medical plan. In many cases, it will not be a qualifying life event and may result in a gap in coverage eligibility. 

To prepare for this verification process, and ensure any inadvertent instances in which you may have forgotten to remove persons no longer eligible for coverage are addressed, do the following during Open Enrollment:

  • Review your dependents by logging into Workday; click on your picture in the top right corner; and select “View Profile” > “Actions” > “View Dependents.”
  • Ensure you’ve removed any dependents who may have become ineligible.
  • For your eligible dependents, order documents such as birth and marriage certificates from vital records at county offices as soon as possible, if you do not have them already.