Each year, Annual Enrollment offers you an opportunity to review your Costco benefits, make changes that better reflect your needs and goals, and confirm eligibility for your enrolled dependents. An Annual Enrollment letter and the 2023 Benefits Plan Changes booklet were mailed to you the last week of October. The booklet contains details about your 2023 benefits. You also can view the booklet on Costcobenefits.com.
The finish line is in sight. Now’s the time to get ready.
Here’s a handy checklist to ensure you have a successful Annual Enrollment. You have until November 22, 2022, to complete the following steps:
Sign up for text reminders on the Enrollment Website.
Review your current benefits plan elections on the Enrollment Website.
Complete the Dependent Verification to continue coverage for your family members, even if you don’t make any changes to your benefits.
Enroll or re-enroll in your Health Care Reimbursement Account and/or Dependent Care Assistance Plan, administered by PayFlex®, for 2023.* This must be done every year. Important note: The balance carryover and grace periodfor reimbursement accounts will change effective January 1, 2023.
Costco takes your emotional, financial and physical well-being very seriously. And that commitment is reflected in your Costco benefits, which continue to evolve to be more accessible and more relevant. This coming year, your Costco benefits will feature some exciting enhancements affecting fertility challenges, adoption expenses, and parenting guidance and support.
Starting January 1, 2023, Costco medical plans will offer coverage for fertility treatments. This benefit will be available to both employees and their covered spouses. You’ll have access to your own fertility advocate, who can guide and support you every step of your treatment journey.
As an Aetna® medical plan member, you’ll also have access to the Aetna Maternity Program.* This benefit offers a wide array of resources, whether you’re planning for a family, already pregnant or working through infertility.
Starting January 1, 2023, Costco will reimburse you for eligible adoption expenses you pay or incur in 2023, up to $5,000 per child you adopt. The plan covers up to two adoptions, for a maximum reimbursement of $10,000. Eligible expenses include adoption fees, court costs, attorney fees and other adoption costs.
To participate, you (or your spouse, if they’re a Costco employee) must have at least one year of continuous Costco employment and be eligible to enroll in a health plan under the Costco Employee Benefits Program. The child you’re adopting must be under 18 years of age.
To learn more, including plan details, how to submit a reimbursement request and what supporting documents are required, visit Costcobenefits.com after November 2022.
Get additional parenting support
The last few years have been challenging for school-age children, not to mention the parents who support them. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), “Beyond getting sick, many young people’s social, emotional and mental well-being has been impacted by the pandemic. Trauma faced at this developmental stage can continue to affect them across their lifespan.”1
RethinkCare offers parents tools and resources they can use to help their child or teen manage challenges at home and school. Take advantage of virtual consultations with a behavior expert, as well as an online library with thousands of step-by-step videos and research-based resources on common social, learning and behavioral topics.
New this year, the program has been expanded to support all families with children or teens, not just those with behavioral or learning issues. The program includes a comprehensive library of over 2,400 step-by-step how-to videos that build socialization, language and other skills; a Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) curriculum; downloadable at-home learning materials; and a catalog of goal-based training on parental and family well-being. With the pandemic-related challenges all families are facing right now, RethinkCare is truly a lifeline for parents.
Do you have children in day care? Are your out-of-pocket prescription drug costs increasing? Do your kids need braces? Does your elderly parent require a caregiver?
These expenses can add up. But with a reimbursement account, administered by PayFlex®, you can set aside pretax dollars and pay yourself back through a Health Care Reimbursement Account or a Dependent Care Assistance Plan.* Just be sure to make your 2023 elections during Annual Enrollment, November 1–22, 2022.
To enroll or re-enroll in a HCRA, you must make your annual election during Annual Enrollment. You can contribute between $120 and $3,050 per year. The money you elect will be taken out of your paycheck and deposited into your reimbursement account before payroll taxes are calculated.
You can then use the amount you set aside to reimburse eligible health care expenses incurred by you, your spouse and your eligible dependents. To be eligible for reimbursement, expenses must be incurred during the year in which you elect to participate.
After submitting your expense receipts through PayFlex, you’re paid back from your reimbursement account. You can access the full amount of your annual HCRA election on January 1, 2023.
Dependent Care Assistance Plan (DCAP)
The DCAP lets you set aside pretax dollars to reimburse yourself for eligible child (under age 13) and elder care expenses necessary for you and your spouse to work. Here are just a few examples:
To enroll, or re-enroll, in a DCAP, you can either make your annual election during Annual Enrollment or when you experience a change in your dependents’ expenses during the year. You can contribute up to $5,000 per year ($2,500 per year if you’re married and filing separately) to a DCAP for work-related dependent care expenses. To be eligible for reimbursement, expenses must be incurred between January 1 of the year you elect to participate and March 15 of the following year. For example, if you elect a DCAP account for 2023, you would have until March 15, 2024 to incur eligible expenses.
The money you elect is taken out of your paycheck and deposited into your reimbursement account before payroll taxes are calculated. Since your payroll taxes are then based on a lower gross amount, the amount of taxes deducted from your paycheck is lower, too.
After submitting your expense receipts through PayFlex, you’re paid back from your reimbursement account. With DCAP, however, you can only access the amount currently in your account at the time of your reimbursement request, not the entire annual amount you elected.
Got money in a PayFlex account? Use it or lose it!
If you have a 2022:
You can carry over into 2023:
Health Care Reimbursement Account (HCRA)
A maximum of$570
Dependent Care Assistance Plan (DCAP)
$0
You have until April 30, 2023, to submit reimbursement claims for eligible expenses incurred between January 1 and December 31, 2022.
To enroll or re-enroll in an HCRA or a DCAP for 2023, visit Costcobenefits.com during Annual Enrollment, November 1–22, 2022. See the resources below for more information.
You can’t always change your circumstances, but you can decide where to focus your mind and heart. By choosing to make gratitude a daily practice, you can increase your happiness, enhance your emotional well-being and even improve your health.
Gratitude is being aware of and thankful for the good things you have. These good things are not necessarily material possessions. They can be relationships, events or anything positive in your life.
Gratitude is a feeling that can come to you spontaneously, but it’s also a daily practice you can cultivate. During this busy time at work, it’s still important to take a few moments to focus on what’s meaningful to you. Choosing to count your blessings and taking the time to be grateful for the good things in your life can have far-reaching positive effects.
The benefits of gratitude
A gratitude practice can lead to:
Increased happiness. Gratitude helps people feel happier and experience positive emotions. When you focus your mind on things that make you feel grateful, you’ll find that positivity follows.
Reduced depression. Verbally expressing or silently reflecting on gratitude decreases depression. Practicing gratitude regularly has also been shown to protect against developing depression in the future.
Strength when facing adversity. Gratitude is good for your emotional health. It can help give you emotional strength and resilience when you’re confronted with stress, loss, grief or trauma. Gratitude lowers cortisol, a stress hormone, in your body. Lowered cortisol levels help you avoid many physical and mental side effects of stress.
Improved physical health. People who are grateful tend to sleep better and have fewer aches and pains. Increased feelings of gratitude might even indirectly improve immune function and reduce inflammation.
Community building. People who are focused on gratitude are inspired to give back and support their community in positive ways. This means cultivating gratitude will not only benefit you — it’ll also benefit those around you.
How to foster gratitude
Gratitude can be felt and expressed in several ways. Your feelings of gratitude can be for the past (thankfulness for memories and blessings), the present (appreciating what you have) or the future (an optimistic outlook). If you want to foster gratitude in your life, there are many simple ways you can try.
Practice mindfulness. Mindfulness and gratitude are connected. Mindfulness is the practice of intentionally focusing your attention on something. Even just a few minutes of meditation focusing on thankfulness can increase your feelings of gratitude.
Say thank you. The simple act of saying a sincere “thank you” to others will grow your gratitude. Both saying “thank you” out loud and taking the time to write a thank you note will help you increase gratitude in your life. If you can’t thank someone personally, even pausing to thank them in your mind can foster gratitude.
Keep a journal. Gratitude journaling doesn’t have to be time consuming or complicated to be effective. One study showed that people who made a simple daily list of things they were grateful for reported a significant increase in happiness and life satisfaction after just two weeks.
Start saying grace. Pausing to express your thanks before eating is a popular practice for cultivating gratitude. Grace is commonly said as a prayer of thanksgiving before a meal, but you don’t need to be religious to say grace. Just take a moment to thank the people you’re with and recognize the blessing of a nourishing meal.
Surround yourself with gratitude cues. Fostering gratitude might require some reminders. Surround yourself with pictures of people, pets or places that inspire your feelings of gratitude. Leave yourself sticky notes with reminders of what you’re thankful for and make it a habit to take a moment to give thanks whenever you see them.
A little gratitude leads to more gratitude
When you try to focus your mind and thoughts on the things you’re grateful for, you’ll start to notice more things to be grateful for. Scientists have found that brain scans of people who foster gratitude show changes that make them more likely to continue their practice. This means that as you work to have more gratitude in your life, the positive feelings of thankfulness will begin to flow more easily and naturally.
Fostering gratitude takes a little bit of time and intention, but your efforts will pay off. You’ll transform your mind and possibly even improve your physical and mental health by choosing to focus on gratitude.
If you’d like to learn more about starting a gratitude practice or other tools for improving your emotional and physical health, the following resources can help.
This time of year, there’s so much to be thankful for. Family and friends. Or a relaxing day on your own. And a Thanksgiving side dish you can make in less than 30 minutes. For a healthier alternative to sweet potatoes with toasted marshmallows on top, give this spicy, smoky recipe a try. It just might become your newest holiday classic.
4 medium sweet potatoes peeled and cut into 1-inch cubes
1/3 cup cold water
4 tablespoons unsalted butter (half of one stick or 1/4 cup), softened (sub vegan butter to make dairy-free)
1 chipotle pepper finely chopped (more if you want more heat)
3 teaspoons adobo sauce from the can (more/less depending on desired heat level)
1 teaspoon fine sea salt or more to taste
Directions:
Step 1
Place the sweet potatoes in a pot with the cold water.
Step 2
Bring to a boil then cover and reduce heat. The sweet potatoes will become tender with the steam. Simmer for 15 minutes or until sweet potatoes are tender enough to mash. Drain. Let cool slightly.
Step 3
Transfer tender sweet potatoes to a large bowl. Mash sweet potato mixture with a potato masher. Add butter, chipotle pepper, adobo sauce and fine sea salt. Mash until ingredients are well combined.
Step 4
Serve and enjoy!
Nutrition
Serving: 1 serving | Calories: 207 | Carbohydrates: 32 g | Protein: 3 g | Fat: 8 g | Saturated fat: 5 g | Cholesterol: 20 mg | Sodium: 902 mg | Potassium: 508 mg | Fiber: 5 g | Sugar: 7 g | Vitamin A: 21608 IU | Vitamin C: 4 mg | Calcium: 51 mg | Iron: 1 mg
