1

United States 

Office of 

Personnel Management 

The Federal Government’s Human Resources Agency

Benefits Administration Letter 

Number: 16-402 Date: September 26, 2016

Subject: 2016 Federal Benefits Open Season: Ordering and Distributing Materials

This Benefits Administration Letter (BAL) is the second in our series of 2016 Federal 

Benefits Open Season BALs. This BAL (16-402) provides instructions for ordering and 

distributing Open Season materials including program-specific materials for the Federal 

Flexible Spending Account Program (FSAFEDS), Federal Employees Dental and Vision 

Insurance Program (FEDVIP), and Federal Employees Health Benefits (FEHB) Program. 

You can find previously issued Open Season BALs at www.opm.gov/retirementservices/publications-forms/benefits-administration-letters. 

We divided this BAL into seven sections to provide information regarding your 

responsibilities for the upcoming Open Season. 

Please be aware that it is now too late to order FEHB Fee-for-Service (FFS) health plan 

brochures. If you did not order a supply of FFS health plan brochures, you can access 

these brochures at www.opm.gov/FEHBbrochures. 

You can request HMO plan brochures directly from the health plan contacts identified in 

Attachment 4, FEHB Plan Contacts for Requesting HMO Brochures. 

• Attachment 1: Going Green – View Your FEHB Brochure Online or Contact 

Your Plan for a Paper Brochure 

• Attachment 2: Easy to Use Chart for Ordering and Distributing Materials for 

FSAFEDS, FEDVIP, and FEHB

• Attachment 3: FEDVIP Plan Contacts for Requesting Brochures and Organizing 

Open Season Fairs 

• Attachment 4: FEHB Plan Contacts for Requesting HMO Brochures 

• Attachment 5: FEHB Plan Contacts Regarding Enrollment 

• Attachment 6: FEHB Plan Contact for Ordering Materials for Visually Impaired 

• Attachment 7: FEHB Plan Contacts for Organizing Open Season Fairs 
2

Please distribute Attachment 1, Going Green – View Your FEHB Brochure Online or 

Contact Your Plan for a Paper Brochure, to your employees. 

We previously described our continuing Going Green initiative in BAL 16-401. This 

effort has a two-fold purpose: 

 

1) to provide employees the option of viewing brochures online or to receive a paper 

copy of their health plan’s brochure; and 

2) to limit the number of brochures printed and distributed to Federal agencies. 

We believe that coordination between agency headquarters and field offices should 

produce a much lower need for paper brochures and yet still ensure that those sites that 

need paper brochures will have them. 

You can continue to promote this effort by referring brochure inquiries to 

www.opm.gov/FEHBbrochures. 

Please carefully review Attachment 2, Easy to Use Chart for Ordering and Distributing 

Materials for FSAFEDS, FEDVIP, and FEHB. We would also like to remind you of the 

following materials that we included last year: 

1) Federal Benefits Open Season flyers and banners – post these around your offices 

to remind employees about the Federal Benefits Open Season; 

2) Insurance Benefits Flyers – one-page summaries of the insurance benefits of the 

Federal Benefits Programs (FSAFEDS, FEDVIP dental, FEDVIP vision, FEHB 

Program; and 

3) Save Money On...Flyers – these flyers show how FSAFEDS, FEDVIP, and FEHB 

work together to save employees money. 

This year’s Federal Benefits Open Season will run from Monday, November 14 through 

Monday, December 12, 2016. 

As a reminder, the Federal Employees’ Group Life Insurance (FEGLI) Program and the 

Federal Long Term Care Insurance Program (FLTCIP) do not participate in the annual 

Federal Benefits Open Season.

If you are not already receiving the Benefits Info Listserv, please subscribe by sending an 

email to BENEFITSINFO@LISTSERV.OPM.GOV. In the body of the email, please 

indicate that you would like to be added to the listserv and include your first and last 

name. 

If you have specific questions about the Open Season, please contact your agency’s 

benefits officer. If you do not know who this person is, please go to 

http://apps.opm.gov/abo where you will find a list of agencies and their headquarters 

benefits officers. 
3

We look forward to working with you in the upcoming 2016 Federal Benefits Open 

Season for enrollment for the 2017 plan year. As always, we encourage you and your 

employees to visit our website at www.opm.gov/insure. 

Sincerely,

 John O’Brien 

Director

Healthcare and Insurance

Attachments