Empyrean Customer Care  Center for LANL has been issuing erroneous and conflicting bills to LANL retirees since the beginning of the calendar year.  They are aware of the issues and claim to be working on correcting them.  Retirees should have recently received a letter from Empyrean entitled Important Update: Billing Error Apology and Coverage Assurance.

The LANL: Benefits Office is also aware of the issue.  We received a copy of the following email from them:

This is the message I’ve been conveying to any of the retirees that have contacted me either by phone, email, or through Norm. I am so sorry this is happening to all our retirees.  First and foremost, I want to assure you I will NOT let them cancel anyone over this billing issue. Trust me, we are doing everything in our power to make this right.  Hopefully, you’ll be pleased to know the following steps we are having Empyrean take.

• Insurance Coverage:  Empyrean will be sending a communication to all Direct Bill enrolled retirees, via email and paper, confirming their insurance coverage will remain intact while we work to resolve this matter.  They are partnering with the Los Alamos Benefits Team for this verbiage.  Once the billing issues are resolved, they will provide an additional communication, with approval from the Los Alamos Benefits Team, to Direct Bill participants with information on resolution and next steps.
• Billing Corrections: Empyrean team is working diligently to rectify the billing errors, assuring all accounts are correctly updated and accurate.  An audit is being completed to confirm accounts are correct.
• Billing Subsidies:  Empyrean’s intention is to ensure that retirees do not bear any financial burden resulting from their mistake.  As a gesture of good will, they will be providing a credit to affected retirees for the specific benefits and months that were impacted by the billing errors.  This credit will be applied automatically to the retiree Direct Bill account.    For the retirees that may have paid a fee for a one-time payment over the phone and charged $20 during this issue, we will be crediting their Direct Bill account for the associated fees.
• Communications: As of January 30, 2024, Billing Services has temporarily stopped any Direct Bill communications from mailing other than new Retiree Welcome Packets.   

An apology letter is coming …