You're in the early years of the acting profession, and have to protect that body and those emotions. If you've just become a member of one of the Big Three—Actors' Equity Association, the Screen Actors' Guild, or the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists—you need to know where to go for health insurance information, how to become eligible, and how to file those bills for reimbursement. If you're not a union member, how can you find coverage? Here's an overview.
First, it's important to note that the unions' health and pension plans are trust funds operated separately from the unions themselves. Each fund has a policy-making board legally bound with a fiduciary trust to invest, spend, and monitor monies deposited with the fund. Each also has an administrative staff which supervises day-to-day operations, including determining your eligibility for benefits, and medical bill payments. If you call the union offices, it's basically an extra call. They'll only direct you to the trust fund offices, whose direct phone lines are listed within the information below.
Two of the Big Three—SAG and AFTRA—offer extensive healthcare coverage information on their websites. Actors' Equity Association's website presents only minor data: who provides the basic healthcare plan (Union Labor Life, owned by the AFL-CIO) and dental plan (Cigna) for union members, and health-fund addresses and phone numbers to contact in New York (212) 869-9380, Los Angeles (323) 634-8980, and Chicago (312) 641-2090. Equity's health fund is currently in the process of developing a website. Dick Moore, Equity's press spokesman, told Back Stage that the new website "should be up and running before this summer."
SAG Roadmap
New SAG members can access a plethora of health plan info by going to SAG's website at www.sag.com. Look at the right side of the home page. You'll see a gray-shaded area topped with a black banner reading "SAG Web." Click the first item in blue lettering: "Guild Members." That will take you to a page with the impressive image of Sally Field, poised in her Academy Award-winning performance of "Norma Rae," raising the makeshift cardboard sign reading "Union."
Just to the right of Sally's left elbow, you'll see "Guild Benefits and Member Participation." Clicking that takes you to a page with a red-bulleted list of offerings. Click "SAG Pension and Health."
This brings you to www.sagph.org, which you'll be wise to bookmark. The Screen Actors Guild—Producers Pension and Health Plans Benefits Website gives you a thorough wealth of information you need for healthcare.
Look to the left and find a blue-shaded area with the small headline, "Health." Beneath that sits a list of six items that contain extensive data for you:
"Benefit Tabs" defines your earned and alternate eligibility, eligibility periods, and coverage for spouses, domestic partners, and retirees. The Tabs section also explains the Plan I and II benefits, dental, vision, and life and disability plans.
"Forms" provides access to the numerous brochures and claim forms you can download, including self-pay and domestic partnership. The first item listed is your "Master Data Card," the primary enrollment information source for each participant. This card also includes your designation of beneficiary, and a list of instructions for filling out the card. In addition, there's an annual summary of earnings record, which includes all session and residual earnings reported on your behalf to the pension and health plans during the calendar year. The summary also reflects your total pension credits and accrued benefits under the pension plan.
SPD is an important source for you. This is your online summary plan booklet. Among many other things, it describes your major medical, as well as your prescription drug, and mental health benefits.
In that blue-shaded area below the health and pension sections, you'll find an amazingly human approach to your plans: "Life Event Guide to Benefits." Clicking this section will take you through universal journey of life scenarios and solutions, including work reduction, retiring, moving, marriage, birth of a child, and divorce. Advice includes steps you need to take with your benefits under each of these scenarios, plus external links to helpful sites.
If all this data still leaves you with questions, you can contact the health and pension plan offices in New York (212) 382-1020; Los Angeles (818) 954-9400, or outside L.A. (800) 777-4013; and Miami (305) 670-9795.
AFTRA's Health Plan
Dick Moore, who is also AFTRA's press spokesman, suggested that new AFTRA members first check AFTRA's website at www.aftra.com for health plan information. If a member doesn't have access to a computer, "don't hesitate to call AFTRA's health fund at (212) 499- 4800." Ask for the participant services department, where, says Moore, a very professional staff can answer all your questions. He notes that the fund sends out a regular newsletter to eligible members. And both the fund and the union send members statements on earnings to help them monitor their health eligibility, and make sure their work's being properly credited.
As for finding health plan information on the web, AFTRA's website includes an index to the left of its home page. The 10th button down reads, "AFTRA Health & Retirement." Clicking that takes you to the trust's home page.
Immediately below the fund's title, you'll see an item, "Health Summary Plan Description, Jan. 8, 1999." Clicking the "browse" item takes you to the health plan's simply titled and thorough handbook.
Within the book, you'll have access to the AFTRA fund's addresses and phone numbers for its New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles offices. You'll find extensive information on eligibility requirements. There's also detailed information on the fund's hospital, major medical, mental health and chemical dependency, and prescription drug plans. Along with that are wellness, dental, vision, and life insurance plans, as well as descriptions of general exclusions and limitations to the plan.
Moore also noted that the AFTRA fund's trustees have added new benefits, which has led the fund to begin updating its website, and that all the information should be available for web access by the fall. He added that the fund had an outside firm survey members about the health and pension website's effectiveness, and the firm found members highly satisfied with the website.
The Non-Union Actor
If you've yet to land that magical job that will provide you with a union card, there's still a way to find health insurance. Your best source is The Actors' Fund in New York City. It's website, www.actorsfund.org, presents near the top of its home page the designation "Artists' Health Insurance Resource Center." Clicking that takes you to a welcome page, including info about the resource center, and how to contact it: (800) 798-8447.
If you click the designation "Health Insurance Resources," you'll be led to information on how individuals with or without dependents, as well as small business groups, can obtain medical insurance.
Clicking the "individual" insignia takes you to a page where you select the state in which you reside. Clicking "New York" provides you guidance if you can't afford health insurance, if you want to purchase it directly, and also provides access to consumer and health referral agencies.
So, whether you're a new union member, or not quite there yet, the acting profession has worked hard to find ways to cover you with a health plan, and to guide you in finding and implementing it.