Benefits Committee

Benefits Committee News

January 18, 2017 05:00

In This Edition

Leave of Absence Insurance Changes
Understanding your Health Savings Account (HSA) and your Limited Use Healthcare (FSAEE) account.
How to Get Benefits Help

Leave of Absence Insurance Changes

If you are planning to take a health-related leave of absence, please be advised that management is changing the way health care premiums will be handled. The process for paying for continuing health care coverage while on such a paid leave of absence will be changing. We have been advised that leaves will be coded differently in PeopleSoft in the future. This change in coding will mean that health benefit premiums will no longer automatically be deducted from your paycheck EVEN IF you are coordinating.

If you are coordinating sick leave, vacation or PTO with Short Term Disability or California State Disability, management considers these to be a paid leave. Under this new policy, you will receive a letter from Cobra Management Services (CMS) with instructions for paying the employee portion of your health benefits premium each month. Once you have been on a Worker’s Compensation leave of absence for twelve weeks, and begin coordinating sick leave, vacation or PTO with Worker’s Compensation time loss payments, the process will be the same.

This does NOT mean that you are being required to pay for COBRA coverage under this coding change, but you will have to self-pay the employee premium directly to CMS. It is very important that the premiums be paid on time, or health benefits will end.

If you are already on a leave of absence and are coordinating to keep health benefits in place, we suggest that you double-check your paychecks each month to be sure that premiums have been deducted. If not, contact your leave coordinator immediately.

Understanding your Health Savings Account (HSA) and Your Limited Use Healthcare (FSAEE) Account

The high deductible PPO comes with a prefunded health savings account (HSA) that was funded on January 1, 2017 with $1000 from Alaska Airlines (and a portion of your designated contributions). Your FSAEE should be completely funded at this time.

Both of these accounts are managed with your Premera Healthcare Payment card. When you use this card, vision and dental will withdraw from the FSAEE contributions and medical expenses will withdraw from the HSA. Under our plan, you can roll over $500 each year to the FSAEE while roll over to the HSA is currently unlimited. This means that your HSA dollars can be used to pay for medical cost after you separate from the company.

This healthcare payment card is used like a credit card and should be treated as such.

You can learn more about these two accounts, your balances, payments and what both accounts can be used for at: www.premera.com. After logging in, proceed to Member > Member Services > My Account > Personal Funding Account > Manage Your Account (shows balances, how much you can contribute each year, payments, etc.) You will also find a Help and Tools tab here for qualified medical expenses and FAQs.

How to Get Benefits Help

Your Local Benefits Committee is available to assist you. You can find contact information at http://afaalaska.org/benefits.

In Solidarity,

Your MEC – Jeffrey Peterson, Brian Palmer, Linda Christou, Lisa Pinkston, Laura Masserant, Cathy Gwynn, Tim Green, Brice McGee and MEC Benefits Committee Chairperson Terry Taylor

2016 Open Enrollment Information

November 1, 2015 18:00

Open Enrollment starts tomorrow (Monday, November 2^nd). Your AFA Benefits and Retirement Committee compiled the following information in order to assist you with navigating Open Enrollment.

General Changes

Mailer will be sent to employee’s home addresses 10/15 to advise that Open Enrollment begins on 11/02/15.
Follow up emails will be sent as reminders through Outlook beginning 10/30.
A new tool will be added to the web portal. It is called “Alex,” and is a user-friendly tool to enter information, which will then enable employees to compare and contrast different health benefits options.
A ‘My Alaska Benefits-Annual Enrollment Tab’ will be added to the Alaskasworld website.
If desired, an employee can enroll or make changes by telephone.
This year, confirmation of changes/enrollment emails will be sent to employees in Outlook. There will be links in these emails directing F/As back to their selections in the portal, and their portal message folder if need be.
Employees may carry over up to $500 in unspent Flexible Spending Account (FSA) funds into 2016.

2016 Consumer’s Choice (Health Savings Account/HSA)

In Washington State only, the Premera Network will change from the current Heritage Network to the Premera Prime network. This only affects Washington. In Alaska, the Heritage network will remain in place. All other states use the Blue Shield network, which will not change. F/As should be reminded to check to see that their current health providers are also Premera Prime participants.
The company contribution will remain $1,000 for employee only and $2,000 for a family. This year all enrollees in the plan will receive an additional $500 company contribution to the plan for an individual and $1,000 for a family. This bonus is available during open enrollment only, both for those switching plans and for current Consumer’s Choice plan participants.
A new “HSA On-Demand” feature will be added to the Health Savings Account (HSA) website. It will be called “Click to Pay,” with a sign up and usage explanation. It will automatically draw funds from the employees account to pay bills, similar to an online bill pay service.
A change in the crediting and access to the company contributions will begin in 2016. Similar to a Flexible Spending Account (FSA), the company contributions will be credited at the beginning of the year. IRS regulations require than an employee’s personal contributions cannot be credited until the beginning of the month in which they were actually deducted, and transferred to the HSA account.
If an employee has prior year contributions and/or an investment balance in their account, their cash balance would be used first. Next, they could access their investment balance, and then the company’s contributions. This might prove very beneficial for someone who incurs a large expense in the early part of the year.
The Health Saving Account (HSA) statements will look different this year—more information will be added. A “HSA for Dummies” booklet will be posted on the website.
For prior HSA plan participants who become ineligible (due to Medicare, or other disqualifiers which are listed in the booklet), the Company will contribute $500 to a Special Purpose FSA, which can be used for dental and vision expenses, as well as medical expenses after the relevant deductible is met in one of the other AS plans.
The 2016 HSA limit is $6750 for an individual under the age of 55.

Premera PPO

For 2016 forward, the plan is no longer ‘grandfathered’. The plan will provide 100% preventative health care coverage beginning in January.
Like the Health Spending Account (HSA), the Washington network will be Premera Prime for 2016 forward.
Hospice and palliative care will now be covered even for non-terminal conditions when appropriate.
Over the counter medications in the categories of Flonase, Nexium, and Claritin will no longer be covered, but can be submitted as a Flexible Spending Account (FSA) claim with a doctor’s written prescription.
Up to 90-day prescriptions for maintenance medications can now be filled in retail stores as well as through mail order. There are some exceptions depending on the medication.

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Questions? Contact your local Benefits Committee chairperson.

In solidarity,

MEC Benefits & Retirement Committee Chairperson Terry Taylor and your AFA Benefits Committee

480 Provisions, Insurance and TFP Calculator

September 12, 2015 09:00

Insurance Eligibility

AFA would like to clear up any confusion regarding insurance eligibility. CBA Section 23.B. [Eligibility For Insurance] states,

“1. Flight Attendants must fly or be credited four-hundred eighty (480.0) TFP in a calendar year to be eligible for Company-paid medical, dental and vision insurance inclusive of the following:

Worked TFP;
Sick leave TFP; and
Maximum vacation TFP (based on years of service, no pay or flying requirement.

Years of Service Maximum Days of Vacation

< 1year 1.167 days per month employed

1-4 14 days

5-9 21 days

10-17 28 days

18+ 35 days”

Vacation credit towards insurance based on years of service

Worked TFP and sick leave count toward insurance eligibility. The TFP value of your vacation based on years of service also counts toward the 480 threshold for insurance—even if you do not fly enough to accrue your vacation.

This means that if you have two years of service, you have 14 days of vacation @ 4 TFP/day, resulting in 56 TFP credited toward your insurance. If you’ve been a flight attendant for 18 years, you have 35 days of vacation @ 4 TFP/day, resulting in 140 TFP credited toward your insurance. This is an improvement over the prior contract, in which there was a flying requirement (i.e. you had to be eligible for vacation) in order to have it count towards the 480 for insurance.

Important: Look up your current year-to-date TFP so you can plan accordingly

It is important that you look up your current TFP for the year-to-date, so you can plan accordingly for the remainder of the year and make sure that you are on track for the appropriate 480 provisions. Log onto the Inflight page –> ”My Schedule” –> “Calculators” –> “All-in-one calculator.” The TFP calendar has been corrected, and you now have the ability to look up your accurate year-to-date TFP calculation to determine your insurance, uniform, vacation and Longevity PTO eligibility.

When you select the “Insurance Calculator” you will see a chart depicting your year-to-date totals. Under the “My Results” section it will list your Worked TFP to date, your sick leave and your maximum vacation TFP based on your years of service. It will then list the total amount credited toward the insurance benefits. It will also indicate how much TFP you need to earn your insurance benefits for 2016.

Leaves with Coordination Look-Back Provision

For those Flight Attendants who have been on a leave and coordinated with sick leave or vacation there is a look-back provision. Section 15.M [Leaves with Coordination…]:

“There is a 12-month look-back not including any month with an applicable leave. If you have been on a medical, maternity, FMLA, Workers’ Compensation or parental leave of absence WITH coordination of sick leave (or vacation with short-term disability or workers’ compensation) in any bid month then that month will not count toward the look-back threshold calculation for purposes of applicable provisions in Section 13 [Uniforms], 14 [Vacations], 23 [Insurance Benefits] and 32 [Attendance Policy].”

Therefore in order to determine your eligibility, you will need to count back 12 months that do not include applicable leaves. The look-back will be based on a calendar year but may extend into the prior year(s) to include additional bid month(s) equal to the number of excluded bid month(s), such that 12 full bid months are included in determining if either threshold (480 TFP/240 TFP) has been met.

Unpaid Leave Credit of 1.333 TFP per day

If you are on any type of unpaid leave and are NOT coordinating sick leave (or vacation with short term disability or Worker’s Compensation), you will receive an unpaid credit of 1.333 TFP for each day on which you are on such leave for the purposes of applicable provisions.

When to contact a Pay Analyst

If your look-back goes back prior to 2014, or if you find any errors in the calculation of your year-to-date TFP, you will need to contact a Pay Analyst. In order to find your Pay Analyst, logon to the Inflight page –> “Links” –> “Inflight Resource Directory,” then scroll down to “Inflight Administration” on page 6 and find the applicable Pay Analyst.

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Questions? Contact a Local Executive Council officer or your local Benefits Committee representative.

In Solidarity,

Your MEC – Jeffrey Peterson, Brian Palmer, Yvette Gesch, Lisa Pinkston, Laura Masserant, Cathy Gwynn, Sandra Morrow and Stephen Couckuyt; MEC Grievance Committee chairperson Jennifer Wise MacColl and Grievance Committee member Stephanie Adams; and MEC Benefits Committee chairperson Terry Taylor

Premera Blue Cross Customer Data Compromised

March 17, 2015 16:03

It has recently come to light that Premera Blue Cross, the company that manages a large number of Alaska Airlines employer-sponsored health plans, has experienced a cyber attack that might have exposed the personal data of up to 11 million customers. The attack was discovered on January 29 of this year but initially occurred on May 5, 2014. There is no indication that the attackers have used the data illegally as of this time.

Premera has indicated that they will provide two years of free credit monitoring and identity theft protection services to those affected. A special website has been set up by Premera to provide more information at http://www.premeraupdate.com.

In Solidarity,

Your MEC – Jeffrey Peterson, Brian Palmer, Yvette Gesch, Becky Strachan, Laura Masserant, Cathy Gwynn, Sandra Morrow, Stephen Couckuyt and MEC Benefits Chairperson Terry Taylor

Travel While on a Medical, Maternity, or Workers’ Compensation Leave of Absence

February 10, 2015 17:00

Our contract provides the ability to use on-line travel benefits while on a medical, maternity, or Workers’ Compensation leave of absence. In order to use these travel benefits, you’re required to provide a doctor’s release that states that travel will not adversely affect your ability to return to active service. This requirement is spelled out in section 15.J.1 of the contract:

A Flight Attendant on a leave of absence who wishes to secure on-line travel passes will coordinate such travel through Inflight management. In the case of a medical, maternity or Workers’ Compensation leave s/he must provide a doctors release specifying such travel will not adversely affect the Flight Attendant’s ability to return to active service.

Due to the contractual requirement that you provide a doctor’s release in these instances, AFA recommends that you obtain a doctor’s release to travel when you go out on any of these types of leave if you intend to use your travel benefits and your doctor is comfortable providing such a release.

For more information about this requirement or travel while on a leave of absence, please contact your Local Benefits Committee or one of your LEC Officers. You can find contact information at afaalaska.org/benefits.

In Solidarity,

Your MEC—Jeffrey Peterson, Brian Palmer, Yvette Gesch, Becky Strachan, Laura Masserant, Cathy Gwynn, Sandra Morrow, Stephen Couckuyt and MEC Benefits Committee Chairperson Terry Taylor