Oct. 4, 2024
Connecting Wellness – Today, Tomorrow, Always
Dear Colleagues,
We hope this message finds you healthy and well! In just over two weeks, USC’s annual Open Enrollment period will take place, from Monday, Oct. 21 through Monday, Nov. 4, 2024. One of USC’s community defined Unifying Values is well-being, and consistent with that value, our 2025 focus is on connecting you to wellness today, tomorrow, and always through the medical plans, benefits, and supplemental offerings available at USC.
Open Enrollment is the one time of year for you to review your current benefits elections and, using Workday, to select the options that best meet your needs for the upcoming calendar year. Your selections during Open Enrollment are for benefits effective Jan. 1 through Dec. 31, 2025.
To prepare, visit the 2025 Open Enrollment website – which is your source for detailed information about the benefits available – and look through the overview below for 2025 updates and information on how to learn more. Also, stay tuned to the weekly Gateway Connect newsletter for reminders. If you have additional questions, our HR Service Center associates are available to help at 213-821-8100 or uschr@usc.edu.
Together, these resources will help you feel confident when selecting the best plans to support you and your loved ones.
Be well and Fight On!
| Stacy Giwa Interim Senior Vice President HR, Equity, and Compliance | Erik Brink Senior Vice President, Finance, and Chief Financial Officer |
cc:
Office of the President
President’s Senior Leadership Team
Academic Deans
Provost’s Leadership Team
Academic Senate
Staff Assembly
2025 Open Enrollment Overview
Updates for 2025
- Transition to new Short Term Disability administrator: To provide an enhanced experience for faculty and staff, including an enhanced portal system, same-day response, and improved post-claim features, USC is transitioning its Short Term Disability administrator from Broadspire to MetLife.
- During Open Enrollment, you can choose from the USC Basic Plan – now administered by MetLife – or the State Disability Plan. If you do not make any changes, you will remain in your current plan.
- Individuals currently on short-term disability will receive more information via emails from USC and letters from MetLife on what to expect.
- Expansion of Lyra Health program: USC is expanding the Lyra Health program, giving USC Trojan Care EPO and USC PPO-enrolled faculty and staff and their dependents the opportunity to continue to see their Lyra provider beyond the 25 no-cost annual sessions at the cost of their medical plan’s mental health office visit copay.
- Transition to new pharmacy benefits manager: Prescription drug benefits for USC Trojan Care EPO and USC PPO-enrolled faculty and staff will be managed by OptumRx, instead of Navitus. Your prescription drug copays will remain the same.
- HealthComp to become Personify Health: HealthComp, the administrator of theUSC Trojan Care EPO and USC PPO plans, is changing its name to Personify Health. There will be no change to web addresses, phone numbers, or services offered.
- Update to Health Assessment and Fitness Incentives: As part of the annual review into the university’s investment in healthy choice offerings, these incentives will be combined into one wellness incentive for 2025. Be sure to complete the Vitality Health Assessment Incentive process by Dec. 13, 2024 to take advantage of the updated $300 savings on your 2025 calendar year medical plan premiums.
- Arcadia Hospital to join USC benefits: On Jan. 1, 2025, USC will welcome Arcadia Hospital employees into the USC health system, a transition that will bring them to an automated work environment within Workday. Arcadia employees can learn more about what this means for them in a Welcome USC Arcadia Hospital employees story on the Open Enrollment site.
How to learn more
- Visit the 2025 Open Enrollment website to review your 2025 benefits options, find plan-specific information, and get answers to frequently asked questions.
- Tune in to a recorded Open Enrollment webinar, providing you with an overview of offerings and available any time on the Open Enrollment Webinars page. To support a more cost-efficient allocation of resources this year, we are pausing in-person benefits fairs at UPC and HSC.
- Check the box on all your benefits with this 2025 Open Enrollment checklist, which guides you through making your elections during these two weeks.
Dependent eligibility verification
In order to maintain high-quality benefits for our faculty, staff, and their dependents, and to ensure fairness of the medical costs shared by all, we will soon be initiating an effort to confirm eligibility for dependents covered on our medical plans.
Although we believe the majority of enrolled dependents meet our eligibility requirements, there may be some instances when a USC employee may have forgotten to remove a dependent who is no longer eligible for coverage. In the next few months, all faculty and staff with a dependent enrolled in a USC-offered medical plan will be required to provide eligibility documentation. We urge you to order any of these documents, such as birth and marriage certificates, from vital records at county offices as soon as possible, if you do not have them already. To aid in the review, we will also be sharing steps you can take to download any files you have previously uploaded to Workday.
We encourage you to use Open Enrollment as a time to remove any dependents who may have become ineligible. Stay tuned for additional communications coming from our third-party partner Secova around this.