Open enrollment season is here! We’re bringing back our most popular episode for an encore. This episode is sure to answer your burning questions about this crazy time of year.

Each month on Talking Benefits, I join Julie Stich, Kelli Kolsrud and Justin Held, International Foundation benefits nerdthusiasts, to discuss a trending employee benefits topic we think our listeners want to know more about (and if they didn’t think they wanted to know, they will now!). This month, the team chats about open enrollment.

We discuss what open enrollment is and why it’s important and provide recommendations for answering common questions from employees during this time of year, including:

1. Why do you need my Social Security number?
2. Why did my costs go up this year, and how can I better manage those costs?
3. What’s the difference between an HSA and an FSA? (Bonus! See below for a cool Venn diagram if this discussion went over your head!)
4. I forgot to turn in my enrollment form—Now what?

After covering commonly asked open enrollment questions, the team provides a few quick tips and helpful takeaways. (You’ll have to listen to find out what those are!)

As health plan sponsors finalize enrollment materials, prepare for the onslaught of questions and stock up on caffeine and [insert snack of choice—mine would be chocolate!] to handle the extra stress of open enrollment, we hope these tips and FAQs are helpful.

Bonus Venn Diagram: Keep up with the team as we discuss HSAs vs FSAs with this sketch from the podcast recording:

Don’t miss a single episode! Subscribe to Talking Benefits on iTunes, Stitcher or wherever you get your podcasts for automatic updates as new episodes are released, or watch for new episodes on the International Foundation website.

Anne Patterson
Social Media and Communications Associate at the International Foundation