United States 

Office of 

Personnel Management 

The Federal Government’s Human Resources Agency

Benefits Administration Letter

Number: 14-211 Date: October 21, 2014

Subject: CLER 2.0

Purpose

The purpose of this Benefits Administration Letter (BAL) is to update Agencies on the progress 

made on changing the requirements for federal payroll offices data submissions to the Federal 

Employees Health Benefits (FEHB) Centralized Electronic Enrollment Reconciliation 

Clearinghouse (CLER). This BAL is a follow-up to BAL 13-202, dated June 24, 2013. 

Discussion

In BAL 13-202, OPM announced an enhancement to CLER that will provide FEHB carriers a 

report providing premium payment data per person, per pay period for each payroll office. 

Carriers do not currently receive any payment information listed by individual. Payroll offices 

were instructed to change the frequency of their reporting data to CLER from quarterly to each 

pay period and to include two new data fields in their input file layout (one in the header of the 

data submission and the other in the body of the data submission). The new file format was 

included with BAL 13-202. 

BAL 13-202 also set an implementation date of March 1, 2014. However, because many payroll 

offices did not complete testing of the new file format with the National Finance Center (NFC), 

the implementation date was changed to September 1, 2014. NFC will utilize the 3rd quarter 

transmission data for reconciliation only. The files must be set to transmit to NFC automatically 

every pay period. During the 3rd quarter NFC will use the transmitted reports to assure that all 

payroll offices are sending the data in each pay period, with accurate amounts. NFC will make 

Report 13- Pay Period Transmissions Payment Amounts available for use in Quarter 4, 

December 1, 2014, provided all payroll offices are transmitting data for each pay period as 

expected. 

The new premium payment report in CLER will allow carriers to better reconcile the premiums 

paid to them and will provide changes in enrollment data each pay period, such as employees 

changing payroll offices or changing health plans. Carriers will be able to make certain changes 

in their enrollment records based on what they see in the CLER premium payment report. This 

should reduce the number of enrollment discrepancies identified in the quarterly enrollment data 

match as carriers have already corrected their databases. This should result in fewer enrollment 

discrepancies each quarter that federal agencies would need to resolve with FEHB carriers and 
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reduce each agency’s workload. Switching to the new input file format and submission 

frequency will allow carriers and agencies to have more targeted information, will help identify 

fraud and abuse, and help to prevent erroneous payments. 

Payroll offices not switching to the new CLER data file format will not have their input 

data accepted by CLER after the December 1, 2014 implementation date. This will result in 

their employees having unmatched records with the carriers. FEHB carriers have instructions to 

initiate termination of enrollment for their unmatched records, so payroll offices that do not 

switch to the new input data file format for CLER run the risk of having their employees lose 

their FEHB coverage. 

For many years, FEHB carriers were paid an extra premium loading due to the inability to 

sufficiently reconcile FEHB enrollment records. Through the use of CLER, reconciliations 

improved significantly and the additional premium load to carriers was no longer needed. This 

was due in good part to positive efforts put forth by Federal agencies and carriers. We now need 

to finalize the implementation of CLER 2.0 to ensure that FEHB enrollment discrepancies are 

minimized and provide carriers premium payment data per enrollee, per pay period. 

File Format Issue 

The file format in CLER 2.0 restricts the reporting of the dollar amount of FEHB premiums 

remitted to or withdrawn from FEHB carriers to $9,999.99. There are times when retroactive 

enrollment adjustments will cause the dollar amount of premiums paid or withheld to exceed this 

amount. In such cases, we ask Federal agencies to limit the dollar amount they report to CLER 

to $9,999.99 even though the actual amount may be higher. We are instructing FEHB carriers in 

such cases to call the Federal agency to obtain the actual dollar amount. Dollar amounts in 

excess of $9,999.99 will not be reported on subsequent reports. When entering the total amount 

of premiums reported in field 4 of the Enrollment file footer record, $9,999.99 will be used for 

tallying the sum. 

Responding to Carriers

OPM is instructing carriers to contact Federal agencies for information needed to resolve CLER 

discrepancies found in the CLER 2.0 report, and to initiate termination of enrollment procedures 

if Federal agencies do not respond within 30 days of being contacted. Agencies need to ensure 

they respond to carriers within those 30 days. 

Assistance

For assistance with the file format and transmission testing with NFC, contact NFC’s CLER 

Operations Unit by calling 855-632-4468 or via email at NFC.CLER@nfc.usda.gov. Testing 

must be completed by November 21, 2014. 

For policy related questions, contact Eric Figg of OPM’s Healthcare and Insurance Office via 

email at eric.figg@opm.gov. 

 Sincerely, 
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John O’Brien

Director 

Healthcare and Insurance