OPM to lift pause on FSAFEDS enrollments in August

Pay & Benefits

OPM to lift pause on FSAFEDS enrollments in August

FSAFEDS enrollees will also soon have to transition to Login.gov and complete an identity verification to continue accessing their accounts.

Drew Friedman@dfriedmanWFED

July 18, 2024 5:38 pm

2 min read

The Office of Personnel Management will soon be reopening enrollments into the government’s Flexible Spending Account program, FSAFEDS.

OPM previously suspended all new enrollments in the program after a recent surge in fraudulent activity that impacted hundreds of federal employees with Flexible Spending Accounts. OPM’s inspector general said the suspension came “out of an abundance of caution,” and to try to prevent further fraud in the program.

Enrollments in FSAFEDS, including any enrollments based on Qualifying Life Events (QLEs), will reopen Aug. 1, OPM wrote in an email to agency benefit officers Thursday afternoon, shared with Federal News Network. Also beginning Aug. 1, the program will transition to a “.gov” website domain, FSAFEDS.gov, rather than the current domain, FSAFEDS.com.

Enrollees who missed a QLE deadline due to the pause on enrollments should still be able to make modifications once the enrollment pause is lifted, OPM said. Employees who are in that situation will have to call FSAFEDS at 877-372-3337 to request a change to the effective date for the QLE.

Additionally, federal employees will be able to get reimbursed for any claims that were incurred after the effective date for the QLE, OPM said.

OPM is also taking more long-term steps to address security concerns in FSAFEDS, including transitioning to Login.gov, the government’s platform for accessing government benefits and services online.

Once the enrollment pause is lifted next month, any federal employees who create new FSAFEDS accounts or update their enrollments following a QLE will have to complete identify verification using Login.gov.

Overall, the switch to Login.gov for FSAFEDS users will take place in a phased approach. Beginning this October, FSAFEDS users who created their accounts during or after 2023 will be required to complete identity verification steps through Login.gov to be able to continue accessing their accounts. Feds who created their accounts prior to 2023 will then have to go through the same verification process starting in January 2025.

“Enhanced identity verification is one of several steps we’ve taken to combat fraud in the FSAFEDS program,” OPM wrote in Thursday afternoon’s email.

Along with pausing FSAFEDS enrollments for several weeks, OPM also for a short time suspended claims payments from getting distributed to enrollees. All reimbursement payments were paused on June 16, and subsequently restarted on June 26.

During the 10-day payments pause, several federal employees told Federal News Network they did not receive any advance notice that the reimbursement payments would be paused.

OPM said it has been working with third-party vendor HealthEquity, which manages the Flexible Spending Account program, to strengthen security measures and secure all accounts impacted by the fraud. A HealthEquity spokesperson has referred all questions on the situation to OPM.

OPM said it will continue to communicate with federal employees and agency benefits officers in the coming days and weeks with any new updates on the situation.