Medical Plan SMMs Available September 30 – NRECA Employee Benefits Weekly

If your cooperative offers one of the NRECA medical plans, you will receive a Message Center notification, starting today, directing you to the quarterly medical plan summary of material modifications (SMM). Deliver the SMM to current plan participants and acknowledge distribution as soon as possible, but not later than December 1, 2020. Also, give the SMM to new plan participants along with the medical plan summary plan description (SPD). COBRA plan participants, retirees, surviving dependents and any children under a qualified medical child support order must also receive their own copy if they do not reside with your employee.

This SMM reflects changes to the NRECA Medical Plan’s Performance Drug list made by CVS Caremark, NRECA’s pharmacy benefit manager, that are effective October 1, 2020. An article in the August 26, 2020 issue of NRECA Employee Benefits Weekly listed the changes. The current Performance Drug List is available to participants on the Checking Coverage page of the NRECA Employee Benefits website.

Distribution instructions
Enter your co-op’s name, REA number and subgroup number on the SMM before distributing it to employees.

The BA Guide contains guidelines for when and how to distribute plan documents, including a distribution checklist and acknowledgement steps. Temporary electronic distribution guidelines available for use during the COVID-19 national emergency are described on the COVID-19 Information & Resources page of the BA Guide.

Please acknowledge distributing your SMMs right away (as part of the distribution process if possible).

For additional questions
Participants with questions about prescription drug coverage or about these changes can call CVS Caremark Customer Care at 888.796.7322.

If you have questions about downloading or accessing your SMMs, call the Member Contact Center at 866.673.2299 or contactcenter@nreca.coop.

For all other SMM questions, call the benefits compliance team at 866.673.2299, option 7, or email group.compliance@nreca.coop.