Washington, D.C. – On Friday, December 13, the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) completed the first Open Season of the new Postal Service Health Benefits (PSHB) Program. The massive new program—the largest new Federal health benefit program since the Affordable Care Act—covers nearly 2 million people, or 20 percent of the total Federal Employees Health Benefits (FEHB) population. The successful implementation of the new PSHB Program and completion of its first Open Season lays the groundwork for long-overdue FEHB modernization. 

Coverage under the PSHB Program began January 1, 2025.   

Highlights from the implementation of the PSHB Program: 

• Prior to Open Season, OPM automatically enrolled around 1.7 million employees, annuitants and family members currently enrolled in FEHB to a PSHB plan through a state-of-the-art online central enrollment system.  
• When Open Season launched, PSHB Program customers, for the first time, could enroll in coverage through a total online experience.  
• The system performed extremely well, and did not suffer any service degradation or unplanned outages throughout the duration of Open Season. 
• Customers benefitted from increased account security and anti-fraud measures.  
• Customers were able to leverage enhanced decision support tools to better compare benefits across plans, as well as check if their family doctor(s) or local hospital were participating in the plans they were considering.  
• These tools were accessed over 500,000 times by Postal Service employees, retirees, or family members to take advantage of this new functionality. Thousands changed carriers or health plans, optimizing their coverage and saving money. 
• OPM also managed a complex customer service ecosystem, coordinating with agency partners from the U.S. Postal Service, General Services Administration, Department of Agriculture’s National Finance Center, and the Department of Labor’s Office of Workers’ Compensation Programs. Together, we answered over 200,000 calls on topics ranging from auto-enrollment, Medicare benefits and coverage, and technical assistance on how to make changes to their plan. 
• OPM had a 99.6% success rate on data migration from five agencies and 45 FEHB Carriers, who previously provided health benefits to these customers in the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program, into the PSHB System. This was the result of a cross-functional data tiger team working together to identify data issues in advance of Open Season to ensure that customers were appropriately enrolled in the PSHB Program. 

“The successful launch of the new Postal Service Health Benefits Program was a herculean accomplishment resulting from collaborative, enterprise-wide efforts across OPM and multiple agency partners,” said OPM Acting Director Rob Shriver. “It offers better decision support tools, a modern online enrollment experience, enhanced program integrity, sophisticated security and anti-fraud measures, and new customer service support – all of which allow employees and retirees to optimize their health insurance coverage and save money We built this the way a modern health benefits program should be built, and Congress should fund expansion of the technology to the FEHB Program.” 

As part of the OPM FY 2025 Congressional Budget Justification, OPM delivered to Congress a legislative proposal to access additional funds from the Federal Employees Health Benefits Fund to develop and maintain eligibility and enrollment systems for the FEHB and PSHB Programs. This would allow consistent and stable funding to support the expansion of such technology to the FEHB program and the addition of new functionality and enhancements to the existing PSHB system.  

The Postal Service Reform Act of 2022 (PSRA) charged OPM with establishing the PSHB Program to provide health benefits plans to millions of Postal Service employees, annuitants, and their eligible family members starting January 1, 2025. OPM negotiated with 17 carriers to offer 30 plans with 69 plan options during Open Season.  As a precursor to Open Season, OPM also managed a six-month Medicare Part B Special Enrollment Period (SEP). A new customer support ecosystem provided direct support to employees, annuitants, and their eligible family members. This effort involved hundreds of people within OPM working together across offices, OPM to ingest data from multiple partner agencies to make eligibility determinations, and seven agencies working together to provide customer support  

The PSHB Program is a culmination of an all-agency effort in coordination with multiple agency partners, including the USPS, Social Security Administration (SSA), Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Department of Agriculture’s National Finance Center, Indian Health Service, the Department of Treasury’s Administrative Resource Center, and the Department of Labor.  

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