Graduate Student Employee Insurance & Benefits

Click here for a visual illustration of how the Premium Sharing Credit Plan Works

Once your employment on-boarding is complete, you will know your profile is active and ready for you to enroll in the employee benefits portal, My UT Benefits once you receive an auto notification via email from benefits@utdallas.edu with subject line: Important Insurance Opportunity – Initial Enrollment. You will then be able to log in to My UT Benefits using your UT Dallas Net ID and Password. You have 31 days from your hire or rehire date (start date of employment) to enroll for your employee benefits as a part-time RA/TA/GA. If you do not log in to the system and enroll, you will not have coverage for the Plan Year.

To enroll in the free dental, vision, ad&d plans, follow the steps on the PSC Enrollment Guide.

The employee My UT Benefits portal will not show any student plans including your student medical plan SHIP. When you see medical is declined in the My UT Benefits portal, its specific to the medical plan made available to employees called UT SELECT (totally different from SHIP). The only time you would want to enroll in the UT SELECT employee plan, is if you preferred to waive your free SHIP plan, and instead pay for the employee plan. However, if your intention is to keep the free SHIP, then seeing “declined” in the employee My UT Benefits portal, is correct.

Friendly reminder, although your employment status qualifies you for the employee medical plan UT SELECT, please know the employee medical plan is not free like the SHIP plan. The cost for the employee medical plan would be deducted from your employee paycheck every month.

Employees have 31 days from their hire date to enroll in benefits.

You will not have any employee benefits, and your next opportunity to make changes to your benefits will be during the Annual Enrollment period (July 15-July 31). The exception would be if you experience a “qualifying life event” (QLE) such as getting married, divorced, having a baby, change in employment status, loss of coverage, etc. If you experience a QLE, you have 31 days from the date of your event to make changes to your employee benefits.

Unfortunately, individual policies, or plans from the marketplace are not eligible for premium sharing benefits. You can still enroll in the plans and pay the respective monthly premiums if you wish.

Once you complete your enrollment in the employee benefits, you can expect your plans to be activated within 5 business days after your enrollment. Once active, you can refer to the the How To Use Your Dental & Vision Benefits guide for details on ID cards and how to use your dental and vision benefits. If you added dependents such as a spouse and/or children, their enrollment is in pending status until the required documentation ie: marriage/birth certificates are uploaded and approved. Once documents for the spouse and/or child are approved, please then allow the 5 business days for their enrollment to be activated.

The UTD employee benefits plan year runs from September 1 to August 31 every year. Employee benefits are always contingent on your employment status. If you have no changes in your employment status all plan year, the last day for you to use your benefits is Aug 31 every year.

However, if you have a change in your employment status, or if you go on summer break and do not work over the summer, or your hours drop below the minimum 20 hours/week, you will lose your eligibility for the employee benefits. If your employment hours are changed to less than 20/week, or your go on summer break, your last day of active insurance will be the last day of the month in which your employment status changed.

If you have medical coverage through your parent’s employer plan, you can still qualify for the premium sharing credit plan. For your enrollment, you will still follow the steps on the PSC Enrollment Guide, and once you save your enrollment, you will need to upload proof of your outside medical plan by uploading a picture of your medical ID card via the “Document Center” on the My UT Benefits portal upon completion of your enrollment.

Employee benefits are always contingent on your employment status meeting the eligibility criteria. If you go on summer break and do not work over the summer, or your hours drop below the minimum 20 hours/week, you will lose your eligibility for the employee benefits.

When you go on summer break, your last day of active insurance will be the last day of the month in which your employment status changed. For example, if your last day worked in your RATA position for 20hrs/week was May 15th, your last day of employee benefits will be May 31. You will then receive a COBRA notice via regular mail offering you a chance to continue your coverage via COBRA

The UTD employee benefits plan year runs from September 1 to August 31 every year. Employee benefits are always contingent on your employment status. If you have no changes in your employment status all plan year, the last day for you to use your benefits is Aug 31 every year.

However, if you have a change in your employment status during the year, or if you go on summer break and do not work over the summer, or your hours drop below the minimum 20 hours/week, you will lose your eligibility for the employee benefits. If your employment ends, or your hours are decreased to less than 20/week, or your go on summer break, your last day of active insurance will be the last day of the month in which your employment status changed. You will then receive a COBRA notice via regular mail offering you a chance to continue your coverage via COBRA.

Always remember your hybrid status: Student and Employee. For the Student benefits such as your student health insurance plan (SHIP), that enrollment is completed automatically for you. Your resources for that plan can be contacted at rataship@utdallas.edu.

For the employee benefits, when you are returning from summer break, you are just like a brand new employee. This means you have a new 31 day window from your hire/rehire date, to re-enroll in the employee benefits such as the free dental, vision, ad&d plans.

Please refer to our How To Use Your Dental & Vision Benefits for instructions on ID cards, as well as details on how to use your benefits without an ID card.

If during your selection of the dental/vision/ad&d plans you see a cost in the enrollment workflow you can disregard and proceed to complete the enrollment. Once you complete your enrollment, the final determination of any cost (if applicable) will be on your Confirmation Statement. To view your Confirmation Statement after you complete and save your enrollment, from the home page on the My UT Benefits portal, click on “Benefits” tab on upper right hand corner, then “Confirmation Statement.” If you have no costs, you will see $0 for the dental/vision/ad&d, as well as your total “Monthly Employee Costs” noted at the top of your statement.

The only time you would have a cost is if you enroll as a family by adding a spouse and children, and based on what plans you select. You can refer to our visual example of when you would expect to see a cost when enrolling as a family.

You should update it via Orion (applies and updates student records only), as well as Gemini via your Self Service Tile, then Personal Details Tile (applies an updates your employee records only). Once that is complete, please allow up to 7 business days to be updated on the My UT Benefits enrollment portal, then up to 5 additional business days to update with the insurance carriers.

When adding a spouse and/or children, please ensure you upload the required eligibility documents such as marriage/birth certificate(s). If they are in a foreign language, we can accept the foreign copy temporarily and you will need to provide a certified translated copy. Once documents are uploaded, a member of our team will review and approve. Plans for a spouse and/or children remain in pending status until the documents are both uploaded and approved.

As an RATA working 20hrs/week, you are in a unique position because your student status qualifies you for benefits that are only available to students, and because of your employment status, you are also eligible for all the same benefits as all the regular benefits eligible staff at UTD. Different teams manage student and employee benefits, and the rules and processes are different. The Student vs. Employee Benefits Comparison Flyer is a helpful visual illustration outlining the major processes under each. We also welcome feedback from our RATAs or ideas you have on how we can help clarify your options or help with better understanding on these benefits.

Opportunities to change your existing benefits when you are not a new hire or newly eligible RATA are available during Annual Enrollment, or if you have a Qualifying Life Event to report.

If you experience a change of status or “qualifying life event” (QLE), per IRS guidelines you can make changes to your benefits outside the Annual Enrollment period. QLE’s are time-sensitive and need to be reported within 31-days via your My UT Benefits member portal online. If its been more than 31 days since your QLE or if you don’t have a QLE to report, your next opportunity to make changes will be during the next Annual Enrollment in July 15 – July 31, to be effective the following September 1. Please keep in mind that in order to complete your change of status request, you will be required to upload the following documents:

• Documentation that supports your change of status (such proof of loss of coverage or proof of new UTD SHIP coverage)
• Proof of Relationship Documents that support any added dependents (such as a birth or marriage certificate)

The list below includes common examples of qualified Change of Status events:

• Employment change from non-benefits eligible to part-time or full-time benefits eligible
• Loss of outside coverage
• Gain of new UTD Student Health Insurance Plan coverage
• Marriage, divorce
• birth, adoption

Learn more about change of status or QLEs here.

Take a screenshot and email us at benefits@utdallas.edu for troubleshooting and review.

if you are an RATA during UTD’s Annual Enrollment period, whether or not you need to take any action will depend on whether you are working over the summer for at least 20hours/week or not.

If you are an RATA that is working thru the summer still at the minimum 20hrs/week, you will have access to login to the My UT Benefits portal during Annual Enrollment to make any changes you may want such as adding/changing/dropping plans, as well as adding/dropping dependents on your plans. These changes will then be in effect once the new year reset on September 1.

If you are an RATA that is not working and you are currently on summer break, or maybe you are working but working 10hrs/week, you do not have to take any action during Annual Enrollment and will not have access to the system. If you fall in this category and expect to return after the summer break to once again work as an RATA for 20hrs beginning in August, you will have a 31 day window as of your August hire date to enroll in employee benefits.

You can view a video overview of the SHIP medical plan for students here.

You can also contact rataship@utdallas.edu for questions on enrollments or visit the Student Health Insurance – Bursar Office website.

Additional resources include:

UTD Student Health Insurance Page: https://insurance.utdallas.edu/

Academic Health Plans (AHP): https://utdallas.myahpcare.com/