Open Enrollment Carrier Feed Projects Overview

This article includes best practices to achieve a successful open enrollment carrier feed update. 

 

DEFINING SUCCESS 

Carrier Feeds play an integral role in a successful open enrollment for you and your employees. Following these best practices will help ensure that your data is transferred seamlessly and in a timely manner following your open enrollment - ensuring that your employees have their insurance ID cards in hand before your new plan year. 

TIP: 

Even if there are no changes, you still need to submit a Carrier Feed Review & Modification project so our team can coordinate the delivery of your OE elections with your carrier and minimize the potential for discrepancies. 

For example, if you began confirming OE elections on 11/20, but had several employees that had not completed their 1/1/22 election, the upcoming scheduled file feeds for 11/23 may terminate the coverage for those employees. This occurs because most carriers cannot accept a current and a new plan year election on the same file. 

By submitting a project request, you’ll put our team into action to proactively work with the carriers to determine the necessary data. Additionally, we’ll be modifying our feed tool to ensure we pass elections as planned to avoid any access to care issues. 

 

WHAT WE NEED FROM YOU

We're here to partner with you and take the stress out of carrier feed updates around open enrollment, but we need your help! Follow these best practices to guarantee success: 

1. Complete our OE Assessment once you have finalized your renewal decisions, and submit the OE Carrier Feed Review & Modification project via the Project Services Catalog by the deadline we'll communicate to you via email.* Refer to our article Submitting an Open Enrollment Carrier Feed Project for additional details on submitting this project. 

TIP:

Only one project is required that will cover all your feeds! After completing the OE Assessment, submit your OE Carrier Feed Review & Modification project, which has a flat fee of $1,000 for clients with 1-2 feeds, $2,000 for clients with 3-4 feeds, and $3,000 for clients with 5 or more feeds. 

2. We recommend waiting to approve your OE elections until the end of your election period instead of approving employee benefits as they come in. Most carriers will require you to pause your feed if you confirm elections throughout, which means you'll have to manually process any other benefits changes with your carriers.  

3. Finalize your Open Enrollment by the deadline we'll communicate to you via email. This gives Namely enough time to send your elections to carriers by their cutoff dates for timely ID card delivery. Namely supports passive enrollment, but only if you finalize your open enrollment after confirming your reports (the finalize step ensures passive enrollees data is updated!) Open enrollment is finalized on your Open Enrollment Dashboard.

*If Namely is your broker, we’ll submit the project on your behalf. 

 

WHAT TO EXPECT FROM U

We're dedicated to your success, and that's achieved not only through our strong partnership, but also a strong partnership between Namely and your carriers. 

We'll partner with your carriers to make sure mandatory updates are made to your existing carrier feeds, including: 

• Changes based on updated account structures 

• Addition of any new plans 

We'll also develop action plans to make sure your employee elections are sent accurately and on time.  

• We'll partner with you and your carrier to determine an action plan for processing current plan year elections alongside your open enrollment elections. This action plan will ensure no critical benefits changes are missed. 

• We'll confirm if your feed can stay live during your open enrollment, and if not, advise on any manual processing requirements. 

• We'll communicate your carrier's cutoff for ensuring ID card delivery before your new plan year start date. Then, we’ll recommend a deadline to finalize your open enrollment to ensure the cutoff is met.  

TIP:

Most carriers need an open enrollment election file two weeks before the new plan effective date to guarantee ID card delivery!  

 

NEW FEEDS

If you indicate that you're interested in setting up any new carrier feeds on your OE Assessment, we will partner with the carriers to confirm your company is eligible for a feed based on their requirements. We will try to build a feed with any carrier, but some have minimum size requirements or other technical roadblocks that might prevent a connection.  

Once we've connected with the carriers and confirmed eligibility, we'll advise you on next steps to initiate the new feed build. New carrier feeds cost $1,600 per feed. 

TIP:

Many carriers have a cutoff date for accepting new feed builds during their busy season, which typically runs from November 1-December 31. We'll be sure to advise you of any blackout periods carriers have.  

Most new feeds will not be completed in time for open enrollment elections to be sent, so elections generally need to be updated manually.  

 

SAMPLE PROJECT TIMELINE

Milestone	Deadline
Finalize renewal decisions with your carriers	10/29
Complete OE Assessment & submit OE Carrier Feed Review & Modification project	11/1
OE EDI Project Manager communicates plan for successful feed delivery & opens carrier-specific projects for our engineers to action	11/9
OE EDI Engineer makes the introduction	11/11
OE EDI Engineer makes feed updates & coordinates with carrier for testing, as applicable	11/11-11/24
Configure & test OE in Namely	11/17-11/19
Host OE election period in Namely	11/22-11/28
OE EDI Engineer sends OE finalization reminder	12/2
Finalize OE in Namely	12/3
OE EDI Engineer transmits OE election file to carrier	12/6
OE EDI Engineer confirms OE election file was accepted by carrier	12/17
OE EDI Engineer confirms file feeds paused, manual processing required	12/18-1/3
ID cards delivered, as applicable	12/31
New plan year	1/1
1st file feed of new plan year sends, OE EDI Engineer confirms manual processing no longer required	1/4