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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.

New York State of Opportunity

ANDREW M. CUOMO
Governor
LOLA W. BRABHAM
Acting Commissioner

SEHP19-02

TO: CUNY Health Benefits Administrators
FROM: Employee Benefits Division
SUBJECT: Special Deductions for Summer Coverage
DATE: March 14, 2019

Each year, the Department of Civil Service (DCS) works with CUNY to identify employees enrolled in the Student Employee Health Plan (SEHP) who receive their annual salary in less than 26 paychecks and are expected to return to CUNY’s payroll in the fall. These employees are referred to as Summer Teachers, and DCS collects special deductions from these employees in order to pay for their coverage over the summer months prior to their removal from the payroll. Summer Teachers are identified by their Billing Option Code in NYBEAS. 

First, DCS identifies certain enrolled CUNY employees who are in teaching positions, and updates their billing option to 20A (meaning they are paid over 20 pay periods). After these employees have their record updated, CUNY HBAs verify the Summer Teacher roster is accurate. 

In order to identify CUNY’s Summer Teachers, you will run a report, available in NYBEAS which lists CUNY SEHP employees’ Billing Option Code. Instructions on how to run reports can be found in HBA Memo SEHP15-05. The report name is BEA_TEACHERS_DEPT.  The information in this report will be used to calculate and deduct the extra summer health insurance premiums. 

In order to verify the CUNY Summer Teacher Roster, after running the report, please review and: 

  • Process a Billing Option Change transaction to 26P for any employees that are no longer on a 20 payroll schedule, and
  • Process a Billing Option Change transaction to 20A for any employee that is eligible for the special summer deductions but were not included on the list.

Please refer to Chapter 6 – Summer Deductions of the 2001 Edition of the HBA Manual for information on how deductions for summer coverage are taken and other information concerning summer coverage. 

You must process a NYBEAS Billing Option Change transaction for any SEHP enrollees eligible for the special summer deductions by March 26, 2019. The paychecks impacted by the special deductions will be based on the Billing Option recorded on NYBEAS for each employee; therefore, it is imperative that these indicators be set accurately by the deadlines listed below. 

If you need assistance processing a Billing Option Change, refer to the enclosed instructions or call the HBA Help Line at 518-474-2780. 

Below are the dates that billing option changes must be processed by and the paycheck dates that will be affected by the extra deductions.

Institution Current Payroll (CUNY GSEU) – 20 paychecks (20A) 

HBA must process all billing option changes by 3/26/19

Paycheck Dates
Regular Deductions Taken
Extra Deductions Taken for following Paycheck dates

4/11/19

1 Regular deduction

2 extra deductions for 6/6/19, 6/20/19

4/25/19

1 Regular deduction

2 extra deductions for 7/4/19, 7/18/19

5/9/19

1 Regular deduction

2 extra deductions for 8/1/19, 8/15/19

5/23/19

1 Regular deduction

1 extra deductions for 8/29/19

 

Termination Date 

For graduate students who do not return to the payroll in the fall, use 08/29/19 as the “date of event” on the termination transaction.

If you have any questions, please contact the HBA Help Line at 518-474-2780.