Office of Personnel Management November 2023 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) is issuing a final rule to redefine the geographic boundaries of the Northeastern Arizona and Utah appropriated fund Federal Wage System (FWS) wage areas for pay-setting purposes. The final rule will redefine Washington County, UT, and several National Parks portions of Garfield, Grand, Iron, San Juan, and Wayne Counties, UT, to the Northeastern Arizona wage area.

The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) is issuing a proposed rule to expand the authority to approve waivers of the normal payment limitations on recruitment and relocation incentives. An expansion of the waiver approval authority would provide agencies with access to higher payment limitations for these flexibilities without requesting approval from OPM. Under this proposed rule, agencies would have the authority to approve a recruitment or relocation incentive of up to 50 percent of an employee's annual rate of basic pay multiplied by the number of years in a service agreement (not to exceed 100 percent of annual basic pay) based on a critical agency need. In addition, this proposed rule would give agencies flexibility to set the length of the required service period for recruitment incentives to a period less than 6 months but not more than 4 years, which would align the service requirements for recruitment incentives with those for relocation incentives and provide agencies with additional flexibility in taking advantage of this incentive as a recruitment tool.

The Office of Personnel Management (OPM), Retirement Services, offers the general public and other Federal agencies the opportunity to comment on an expiring information collection request (ICR), with change: 3206-0201, Federal Employees Health Benefits (FEHB) Open Season Express Interactive Voice Response (IVR) System and the Open Season website, Open Season Online.

The Office of Personnel Management (OPM), Human Resources Solutions, offers the general public and other Federal agencies the opportunity to comment on the extension with change of a currently approved information collection request (ICR): 3206-0246, CyberCorps[supreg]: Scholarship for Service (SFS) Registration system.

This document sets forth proposed rules related to certain provisions of the No Surprises Act regarding the Federal independent dispute resolution (IDR) process, which was established as part of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021 (CAA). These proposed rules would set forth new requirements relating to the disclosure of information that group health plans and health insurance issuers offering group or individual health insurance coverage must include along with the initial payment or notice of denial of payment for certain items and services subject to the surprise billing protections in the No Surprises Act. These proposed rules would also require plans and issuers to communicate information by using claim adjustment reason codes (CARCs) and remittance advice remark codes (RARCs), as specified in guidance, when providing any paper or electronic remittance advice to an entity that does not have a contractual relationship with the plan or issuer. This document also proposes to amend certain requirements related to the open negotiation period preceding the Federal IDR process, the initiation of the Federal IDR process, the Federal IDR dispute eligibility review, and the payment and collection of administrative fees and certified IDR entity fees. This document also proposes to define bundled payment arrangements, amend requirements related to batched items and services, and amend the rules for extensions of timeframes due to extenuating circumstances. Additionally, this document proposes to require plans and issuers to register in the Federal IDR portal. In accordance with Federal law, a summary of these rules may be found at https://www.regulations.gov/.