Civil Service 

Retirement 

System 

Federal Employees’ 

Group Life 

Insurance Program 

Federal Employees 

Health Benefits 

Program 

Federal Employees 

Retirement 

System 

Long Term 

Care Insurance 

Program 

United States 

Office of 

Personnel Management 

The Federal Government’s Human Resources Agency

Retirement and Insurance Service 

Benefits Administration Letter 

Number: 01-317 Date: April 20, 2001 

Subject: CLER, the Centralized FEHB Enrollment Clearinghouse 

This Letter will bring you up to date on our progress to enhance enrollment reconciliation in the 

Federal Employees Health Benefits (FEHB) Program. In Payroll Office Letter 

P-00-25, we informed you that we had entered into an agreement with the National Finance 

Center (NFC) to develop and maintain the Centralized FEHB Enrollment Clearinghouse or 

“CLER”. The development of CLER began in February 2001, with the assistance of a task force 

comprised of carrier and agency payroll office (APO) officials. We expect completion of CLER 

development by January 2002. 

HOW WILL CLER WORK? 

Under the CLER concept, all FEHB carriers and APOs will transmit to CLER a quarterly file 

containing data about each enrollee on their systems. The transmission to NFC will be through the 

existing connection with the Thrift Savings Plan. NFC will compare the data transmissions and 

report enrollment discrepancies to the APOs. The APOs will work with their human resources 

colleagues to resolve the discrepancies and report corrective actions back to NFC for transmittal to 

the carriers. 

The following table may provide APOs with a general understanding of the reconciliation 

timeframes under which we foresee CLER operating (it is based on a hypothetical quarter): 
-2- 

Date Actions 

3/1- 19 Carriers transmit enrollment file to CLER 

3/1 - 19 APOs transmit enrollment file to CLER 

3/20 Email notice to tardy APOs and Carriers 

3/24 Last day to receive input 

3/26 NFC transmits email to APOs that discrepancy reports are available 

3/26-4/30 APOs access discrepancy reports via Internet and research discrepancies 

5/1 APOs send corrective actions to CLER 

5/2-5/31 Carriers correct enrollment records 

CLER is being developed to address long-standing difficulties in reconciling enrollment in the 

FEHB Program. The purpose of CLER is to enhance the reconciliation of FEHB enrollment - it 

will not be used to enroll participants in the Program. Additionally, CLER will not be a repository 

of enrollment information nor will it maintain perpetual FEHB enrollment inventory. 

WHAT IS THE DEVELOPMENT TIMETABLE? 

Within the next two to three weeks we will provide APOs with a detailed record layout for 

transmitting enrollment data to NFC. We believe agencies will find that the record layout generally 

requires data that are currently stored on payroll systems, or now reported to OPM. NFC plans to 

implement CLER for the organizations for which it provides payroll services no later than 

November 16, 2001. The implementation date for all other APOs is March 1, 2002. 

Although we understand that this may represent a significant challenge to some, we feel it is 

important that all agencies be on-board by March 1, 2002. If not, the FEHB Program will incur 

additional administrative expenses, since the carriers will be forced to operate two enrollment 

reconciliation processes. Unless we are informed otherwise, we will assume that all APOs will 

implement CLER by March 1, 2002. Should your agency be unable to meet this important 

deadline, we ask that an agency manager, with overall responsibility for payroll, provide by letter a 

firm commitment to an alternate implementation date within calendar year 2002. The letter should 

be directed to: 

Ms. Kathleen M. McGettigan 

Chief Financial Officer 

U.S. Office of Personnel Management 

1900 E Street, N.W. Room 3H24 

Washington, DC 20415 
-3- 

We are planning two events that will help familiarize attendees with CLER. The first will be a 

meeting of all APOs in May in the OPM auditorium. The second will be a discussion of CLER 

at the upcoming Federal Benefits Conference to be held from June 5th through 8th in Norfolk. We 

will also send a Benefits Administration Letter to agency personnel offices advising them that we 

will expect their full cooperation in resolving FEHB enrollment discrepancies. 

If you have any questions about this letter, we would prefer that you email us at finance@opm.gov, 

so that we may have a record of them. You may also phone us on 

(202) 606-0606. 

 Robert A. Yuran, Chief 

 Financial Policy Staff