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: 01-401 Date: August 1, 2001

Subject: 2001 Federal Employees Health Benefits (FEHB) Program Open Season: 

Introduction 

DATES

The 2001 Federal Employees Health Benefits (FEHB) Open Season will be held from November 

12, 2001 through December 10, 2001.

BALs

As we proceed with our preparation for the 2001 Open Season, we will issue a series of Benefits 

Administration Letters (BAL) to give you information about ordering open season materials, 

significant FEHB plan changes for 2002, suggested open season notices for your employees, and 

other useful information that will enable you to conduct a successful open season at your agency.

AUDIO CASSETTES

The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) will not be involved in the ordering of brochure 

audiocassette tapes for the visually impaired. Agencies must order these tapes directly from the 

open season fee-for-service plans. We will include a list of plan contacts from whom you may 

order the tapes when we send you the BAL on ordering and distribution.

OPM WEB SITE

All 2002 FEHB Guides, health plan brochures, and the news release announcing the 2002 premium 

rates will be available on the OPM web site at www.opm.gov/insure/health.

The Guides and brochures will be available in PDF format for downloading and printing, as well 

as text version suitable for the visually impaired.
2

Our web site will contain a version of the FEHB Guide designed specifically for the electronic 

environment. It will contain links from the plans’ names to the plans’ brochures in both PDF and 

text formats. In addition, the web site will also contain versions of the plan brochures designed 

for easy navigation.

WEB DECISION TOOLS

OPM will not feature a link to a health insurance decision-making tool on the 2001 Federal 

Employees Health Benefits (FEHB) open season web site during the 2001 open season. 

Since 1999, we have provided a link from the FEHB open season web site to a decision tool. 

This tool was available to Federal employees, annuitants and their families to help with FEHB 

open season enrollment decisions. We recently became aware that there are other web-based 

tools in addition to the tool we have featured in the past. In fact, several vendors have 

demonstrated their products to us. While their approaches to the decision-making process are 

different in several ways, we concluded that each could be helpful to Federal 

employees/annuitants in selecting a plan that best meets their needs. 

We have advised companies and individuals with a web-based tool to contact individual Federal 

agencies about making their product available to Federal employees. Agencies can then decide 

which tool would best meet the needs of their employees. OPM’s Office of Insurance Programs 

will work with qualified vendors to provide them with the FEHB data necessary to populate a 

decision tool. The data is generally available on the OPM web site no later than November 1. If 

necessary, however, we can provide the data earlier.

CONTACTING US

Our Internet email will enable us to answer agencies’ open season questions quickly and 

efficiently. If you have a question about an open season BAL, or any other questions about open 

season, just direct your question to fehb@opm.gov. 

Abby L. Block

Assistant Director

 for Insurance Programs