Benefits Available to New or Expectant Parents

Hoos Well offers beneficial services for you and your spouse on the UVA Health Plan who are expecting, which you can find on the Support for new and expectant parents webpage.

Expenses for having a baby are often a big concern for expecting parents. The HR Medical Scenarios webpage offers several common medical scenarios and their estimated costs, including having a baby.

Making changes to your benefits package is usually reserved for Open Enrollment, but dependent changes qualify for changes during the plan year.

You have 60 days to submit a Qualified Life Event. 

Dependent changes include adding a child (or children) from birth or adoption to UVA benefit plans. If you are planning to add a new child to your UVA benefit plans, you need to do so within 60 days of the child’s date of birth or placement. This change can be in made Workday.

Please review the Coordination of Benefits prior to adding newborn. As plan provisions may determine which parents plan is primary. 

You may also either sign up or increase your contributions to a Flexible Spending Account (FSA), Dependent Care FSA, or Limited FSA during a qualified life event when a new child joins your family.

• The Flexible Spending Accounts and the Limited Flexible Spending Accounts set aside pre-tax income for certain medical costs.
• The Dependent Daycare Reimbursement Flexible Spending Accounts set aside pre-tax income for dependent/child daycare expenses.
• Employees on the Basic Health care plan may open or add to the Limited Flexible Spending Account or the Dependent Daycare Flexible Spending Account.

More information about the available Flexible Spending Accounts can be found under the Benefits Savings Account section of the HR website. The brochure regarding the FSA plans from Chard Snyder, UVA’s FSA vendor, also provides a useful overview of these accounts.

UVA dental coverage through United Concordia has a benefit with additional coverage under “Smile for Health® Maternity Benefit” which provides coverage for an additional cleaning and periodontal services for women during their pregnancy. Extra oral care during pregnancy helps prevent pregnancy gingivitis—a mild form of gum disease resulting from changes in the body’s hormone levels.

There are few things more important than taking care of our loved ones. UVA agrees, and has made providing dependent care resources, options, and financial support to employees a primary goal.

Employees may need full-time childcare, short-term back-up care for a loved one, or during these challenging times, extra support for schoolwork. These scenarios are addressed on the Dependent Care webpage with services for:

• Ongoing Care
• Short-term & Back-Up Care
• School & Tutoring Support

Choose from in-home or facility-based care, or source your own dependent care providers and get reimbursed. All options are offered to UVA benefits eligible employees, and Bright Horizons Back-up Care is offered at discounted rates.

Benefits will continue during your leave of absence unless you request to waive benefits for a period of unpaid absence.

If you are on any period of Leave Without Pay (LWOP), you will owe the premiums for your benefits. For unpaid absences less than sixty days, benefits will be held in arrears and taken from the next check where pay is received. For unpaid absences over 60 days, employees will receive an invoice for premiums due.

Expecting parents need to be aware that Coordination of Benefit rules may impact which parent’s health plan is the primary payer for newborn expenses, triggering deductible and out of pocket cost obligations. Many health plans have an automatic enrollment for newborns. In the instance where employees and their spouse each have their own employer sponsored health coverage, and when both health plans have Coordination of Benefit language, the health plan that is primary for newborn expenses will be determined by the “Birthday Rule”.

The birthday rule determines the order that insurance pays benefits. When a child is covered by two parent’s separate health insurance plans, the birthday rule states that the plan of the parent whose birthday occurs earlier in the calendar year determines its benefits and pays first. If both parents have the same birthday, the plan that has been in effect the longest pays first. Coordination of benefits typically is a contractual provision in health plans that cannot be waived. The birthday rule applies when there is dual coverage and standard Coordination of Benefits language in the health plans.

Review UVA Health Plan Coordination of Benefits with other potential plan.