The Office of Personnel Management is giving many employees in its healthcare and insurance division another chance to accept voluntary incentives and leave their jobs, ahead of their busy season.

OPM told employees in its healthcare and insurance (H&I) division on Monday that most of them will have another shot at opting into the deferred resignation program. Employees who apply and are accepted by OPM will go on paid administrative leave for six months before separating from the agency.

Most of OPM’s healthcare and insurance division employees will also be eligible for early retirement. Federal employees are eligible for early retirement if they have 20 years of service at age 50, or 25 years of service at any age. Eligible employees are allowed to voluntarily retire and earn an immediate annuity.

Eligible employees have until 5 p.m. Eastern on July 13 to accept the DRP or Voluntary Early Retirement Authority (VERA) offers. OPM employees approved for the DRP program will go on paid administrative leave starting Aug. 31, 2026, and will officially separate from the agency on March 1, 2027.

OPM said these voluntary separation incentives are being offered ahead of an “organizational change” for its healthcare and insurance division. Last month, Shane Stevens, the division’s former top official, announced he was voluntarily resigning from OPM.

These changes come a few months ahead of OPM’s busy Open Season, a one-month period in which federal and Postal Service employees can make changes to their healthcare plans. Open Season starts in November and ends in December. Health plan changes made by federal and postal employees during this period go into effect in January.

James Muetzel, a senior advisor for healthcare and insurance at OPM, told employees in an email that the agency is offering these voluntary separation incentives “before considering any involuntary actions.”

“These programs are intended to provide employees with meaningful choices and support for those who choose a transition as H&I undergoes organizational change,” Muetzel wrote in an email obtained by Federal News Network. “While the timeframe for the final reshaping of H&I has not been finalized, necessary steps for reimagining H&I will occur in the next few weeks.”

According to the email, employees who take the DRP offer will not be affected by any future reduction in force that might occur during the deferred resignation period. Employees will continue to receive their pay and benefits until their March 1 separation date.

“As you know, our agency has a responsibility to ensure that our structure, staffing, and resources are fully aligned with the administration’s priorities and the work we are statutorily required to perform,” Muetzel wrote. “To that end, we are undertaking a careful review of H&I to ensure we are positioned to meet those obligations effectively, both now and in the future.”

According to the email obtained by Federal News Network, employees in OPM’s Office of the Actuaries (OA) and Systems Development and Implementation (SDI) are excluded from these voluntary separation offers. An OPM spokesperson declined to comment.

Employees who opt into the DRP offer will not receive a performance award for fiscal 2026, since they will go on leave before the rating period ends.

OPM, in a proposed rule also issued Monday, is looking to update its regulations on appropriate uses of administrative leave governmentwide, including for “workforce realignment” initiatives.

“The use of administrative leave in connection with deferred resignation programs and other workforce restructuring initiatives is particularly important. These programs facilitate workforce realignment efforts that will lead to a leaner, less expensive, more efficient, and more mission-focused federal workforce,” OPM wrote in its proposed rule. “While there is a temporary cost to providing administrative leave, these programs can generate large long-term savings by reducing federal staffing levels. They can reduce the need to apply administratively burdensome and disruptive reduction-in-force procedures.”

A recent report from the nonprofit Public Citizen estimates that the Trump administration paid at least $11 billion to approximately 140,000 federal employees to go on paid administrative leave as part of the deferred resignation program.

OPM’s proposed rule also states that each agency has “sole and exclusive discretion” in deciding whether to accept or deny an employee’s request to withdraw their resignation before it goes into effect. The proposed rule states that an employee’s receipt of benefits under a deferred resignation agreement “is a valid reason to deny an employee’s request to withdraw a resignation.”

“When an employee has agreed to resign on a future date and to receive paid leave benefits prior to that date, an agency has good reasons to deny a resignation withdrawal request,” OPM wrote.

The IRS rescinded hundreds of deferred resignation offers last year “to fill critical vacancies,” but the agency refused employees’ requests to rescind their resignations before they went into effect, according to the National Treasury Employees Union.

OPM isn’t the only agency incentivizing employees to leave their jobs. The Small Business Administration recently gave its employees another chance to accept the DRP offer. According to a spokesperson at the American Federation of Government Employees, which represents SBA employees, eligible employees had until June 22 to opt into the offer.

An SBA spokesperson confirmed that the agency offered employees another shot at the DRP and early retirement following its recent reorganization announcement.

“The agency is coordinating directly with employees as to the start date of their respective administrative leave start dates,” the spokesperson said.

Earlier this year, OPM called on federal health carriers to reduce costs while promoting a “well care” model in the federal insurance marketplace. In its March 31 call letter, OPM emphasized that members of Federal Employees Health Benefits and Postal Service Health Benefits plans should take a “more active role” in their health. The agency also encouraged carriers to expand non-pharmaceutical health coverage, which OPM said will “prevent chronic conditions and drive meaningful cost savings.”

Health plan participants have faced significant cost spikes over the last several years. For 2026, enrollees in FEHB and PSHB began paying an average of 12.3% and 11.3% more, respectively, toward their health insurance premiums.

Amid the surging expenses, OPM is encouraging carriers to find “innovative” ways to cut costs while maintaining “comprehensive” coverage. That can include strategies such as “site of care optimization”— or in other words, incentivizing plan members to go to lower-cost medical care facilities whenever possible.

Notably, OPM’s call letter, published on March 31, came several weeks behind the usual schedule of releasing the letter in January or February.

If you would like to contact this reporter about recent changes in the federal government, please email jheckman@federalnewsnetwork.com, or reach out on Signal at jheckman.29

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