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Helpful Tips for Open Enrollment

Washington University offers benefits with a focus on you — to support your overall well-being and help you and your family thrive. During open enrollment, please review your health, vision and dental options, verify eligibility for any dependents and enroll or manage (re-enroll) in your Flexible Spending (FSA) or Health Savings Accounts (HSA). Find more information, such as benefits guides, tools like Alex, Workday resources, and more, on the open enrollment website.

We’ve received feedback about this year’s benefits open enrollment and making your elections in Workday. Below are some tips to make your open enrollment event easier for you.

If you would like to view your current benefits elections for reference, please visit the Benefits application from your Workday homepage. Click on the Benefits icon, then click on Benefit Elections under the View list – you are able to view your current HSA, Health Care FSA and Dependent Care FSA contributions there.

If you have not already done so, please designate your beneficiaries in Workday.You won’t be able to submit your benefit elections in Workday without completing this step. View a step-by-step guide and video for help.

If you are prompted to provide a dependent’s social security number (SSN), enter the SSN if you have it. Do not enter your SSN in the box. If you do not have the dependent’s SSN, select Reason SSN is Not Available and then indicate “missing” in the box.

You do not have to complete your benefit elections once you start the process. You can continue to select and save your elections as well as change them before Nov. 17. Be sure to submit your final elections before the Nov. 17 deadline.

Terminology in Workday is different than our previous benefits system. Please note the below differences to help you navigate which benefits are available to enroll or re-enroll at this time.

Manage” indicates you are currently enrolled in that benefit plan with the coverage displayed for 2021 and you can keep your selections or change your options for 2022. If you need to make a change, you should click “Manage” to make the necessary updates.

Note: There are two exceptions to where you will see “Manage” but do not have an option to make a change: Short-term disability and long-term disability both show “Manage”, however, these are university-provided benefits and no action is needed to keep these benefits.

Enroll” indicates that you are currently waiving that benefit plan for 2021 and have the option to enroll for 2022.

View” features benefits that are managed outside of Workday and any updates must be made through a specific vendor.

Manage, Enroll and View are on the bottom of each benefit plan tiles. You may select or waive your benefit options once you click on a tile.

Long and short-term disability coverage as well as the employee assistance program are university-provided benefits. You may see these tiles as part of your open enrollment event homepage, but will not be able to manage them. They are provided as part of your employment at WashU.

If you wish to change your 403(b) Retirement Savings contribution or retirement account beneficiary designation, you must do so on the TIAA website.

Workday will send an email to your WUSTL account each week as a reminder to submit your elections if you haven’t done so yet. 

We encourage you to save and/or print a copy of your final benefit submissions for future reference and confirmation.

If you have additional questions, please contact our Benefits Team at hr-benefitsmail@wustl.edu, by phone at 314-935-2332 or toll-free at 866-232-1482.