The Empire Plan is a unique health insurance plan designed especially for public employees in New York State. Empire Plan benefits include inpatient and outpatient hospital coverage, medical/surgical coverage, Centers of Excellence for transplants, infertility and cancer, home care services, equipment and supplies, mental health and substance abuse coverage and prescription drug coverage.
GOVERNOR
DEPARTMENT OF CIVIL SERVICE
ALBANY, NEW YORK 12239
www.cs.ny.gov
COMMISSIONER
DANIEL E. WALL
EXECUTIVE
DEPUTY COMISSIONER
PA94-09
TO: Participating Agency Health Benefits Administrators
FROM: Employee Benefits Division
SUBJECT: New mailing procedure: Update enrollee addresses
DATE: August 10, 1994
New distribution procedure: We will mail the next Empire Plan Report and future plan documents directly to your employees and retirees enrolled in NYSHIP. You will no longer receive cartons of publications to distribute. The bulk shipments you receive will be greatly reduced. With each mailing, we will send you a supply equal to 20 percent of your enrollment for you to give to new employees. This change offers several advantages, outlined below.
Mailing the Empire Plan Report by first class mail directly to enrollees' and retirees' homes will save $10,000 in postage on each issue and eliminate, entirely, your postage costs for remailing. It will also save time for you. This new procedure speeds delivery, ensuring that enrollees will receive plan documents before benefit changes. Please remind your enrollees that they must meet program requirements to protect their benefits.
When an enrollee's publication is returned to us because of an incorrect address, we will mail the publication back to you and ask you to make sure the enrollee gets the material and to correct the enrollee's address as soon as possible.
We need your help with enrollee addresses. Please continue to make a concentrated effort to update your addresses. Use the regular procedure by submitting an ADR transaction on the PS-503.1 and mail it to Blue Cross.
We are pleased to offer this new service to your agency and enrollees. If you have any questions about the new procedure, please call the Communications Unit at 518-457-7577.