U.S. Office of Personnel Management - Ensuring the Federal Government has an effective civilian workforce

Federal Employees Health Benefits Program

SUBJECT: 2006 Technical Guidance and Instructions for Preparing Proposals for Fee-For-Service Carriers

Enclosed are the technical guidance and instructions for preparing your benefit proposals for the contract term January 1, 2006 through December 31, 2006. Please refer to our annual Call Letter (Carrier letter 2005-10) dated April 19, 2005, for policy guidance. Benefit policies from prior years remain in effect.

Please send us your complete proposal for benefit changes and clarifications no later than May 31, 2005. Your proposal should include the corresponding language that describes your proposed changes for the brochure. You do not need to send your fully revised 2006 brochure by May 31. We will provide separate instructions for preparing your 2006 Federal Employees Health Benefits (FEHB) Plan brochures at a later date.

Your OPM contract specialist will negotiate your 2006 benefits with you and finalize the negotiations in a closeout letter. Please send an electronic version of your fully revised 2006 brochure to your contract specialist within five business days following the receipt of the closeout letter or by the date set by your contract specialist.

In August we will send you brochure printing specifications, electronic graphics, and the OPM authorization block for the cover, along with your approved brochure text file. We will send you a brochure quantity form, shipping labels, and other related open season instructions.

As a reminder, each year we assess carriers' overall performance. We take into consideration your efforts in submitting benefit and rate proposals on time and your accurate and timely production and distribution of brochures, as major factors in a plan's overall performance.

We look forward to working closely with you on these essential activities to ensure a successful Open Season again this year.

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