Benefits Decision Support Overview

Important: The information presented to employees in their Benefits Decision Support results (during enrollment) doesn't replace the comparison information for plan options. Even if you want to enable Benefits Decision Support for enrollments, you must still enter comparison information for plan options in enrollment setup. See Add Comparison Information to Options.

When you go to Benefits Setup > Benefits Decision Support, Dayforce shows existing decision support configurations in a sidebar on the left side of the screen. If no configurations are set up yet, the sidebar is empty.

The panel shows plan names, and their associated configurations (indicated by effective date ranges) are listed below them. The list is expanded when you first access the feature. You can collapse the list of configurations for each plan by clicking the expand icon () next to the plan name, and you can collapse the entire list of plans by clicking the collapse icon () at the top right corner of the list.

While you can have multiple decision support configurations for a plan, only one of those configurations can be active at any time. When you add a subsequent configuration for a plan, Dayforce end-dates one of the configurations upon save, to ensure that configurations for a single plan don’t have overlapping effective dates.

Configurations are identified by their effective dates, and they’re ordered most recent to oldest. You can choose to view only active or all historical decision support configurations by toggling the Active/All switch at the top of the list of plan names (and configurations).

Note: It’s recommended that you set up a new decision support configuration for a plan each plan year, rather than updating an existing configuration, when a plan's benefit design (for example, coinsurance percentages, deductibles, or out-of-pocket maximums) have changes. Doing so allows you to set up that configuration before you'll need it, and you'll have a historical record of all of the configurations that you've used. You can do this more quickly by copying an existing configuration.

Click a configuration, and Dayforce shows the settings to the right:

Benefits decision support configured for plans

The plan name, effective dates, dates of the plan year, and the effective dates of the configuration shows at the top of the configuration area. For existing configurations, the date of the last update, and the user name of the person who made the update are also shown.

Each configuration includes the following sections:

General: Set the effective date for the configuration and record other general details.
Option Configuration: Set which options are excluded from the configuration and which coverage tiers (for example, Employee Only, Employee + Spouse, Full Family) apply for included options.
HSA/FSA/HRA Configuration: Enter HSA, FSA, or HRA information for each tier. These sections are required if you set the configuration to include reimbursement account information.
Coverage Thresholds: Enter medical and prescription deductibles and out-of-pocket maximums for all coverage tiers.
Required Coverage Details: Enter benefit design details for all of the required coverage categories (or benefit services).
Optional Coverage Details: Enter benefit design details for any of the optional coverage categories (or benefit services) that are included in the plan.

The first five sections are required, while the last is optional.

In the Required Coverage Details and Optional Coverage Details sections, you select the benefit design type (for example, co-pay, coinsurance, or dual) that applies to each benefit service and then enter the details of that design. Dayforce shows the fields for you to set based on the benefit design that you select for that service.

You must set these details for all of the benefit services listed in the Required Coverage Details section. You don’t have to set them for any of the services listed in the Optional Coverage Details section but doing so increases the accuracy of the out-of-pocket cost calculations generated by Benefits Decision Support for your employees.

You can add decision support configurations for medical plans (health plans with the word “medical” in the subtype name) as long as they’re current or future-dated plans. Dayforce doesn't list plans that have an Effective To date in the past when you’re adding a new configuration. Also, if a plan or option is deleted in Benefits Setup > Plans and Options, Dayforce removes any decision support configurations for that plan or option from Benefits Decision Support and the associated information from any enrollments using it.

If there is an existing decision support configuration for a plan, and a new option is added to that plan in Benefits Setup > Plans and Options, the option is, by default, excluded from decision support until a tier (for example, Employee Only, Employee + 1 Child) has been selected for it. If you want that option to be included, you must go to Benefits Decision Support and set which tier or tiers apply to that option.

Note: If options don’t have a tier selection, they’re excluded from decision support, even if the Excluded checkbox isn’t selected.

It’s recommended that you encourage employees to enter all possible dependents in the Profile section of their enrollment, even if they don’t currently plan to cover those dependents with their benefits. This allows employees to answer the questions in the Benefits Decision Support questionnaire in different ways (for example, covering just themselves versus covering themselves and dependents) to determine the cost, and potentially compare that with the cost of a partner's or spouse's plan.

To proceed with setting up a decision support configuration, review the following topics: