Non-Exempt Employees (Hourly): The final 2007 pay date is December 21^st. For your Educational Assistance Reimbursement to be paid on that check and count towards your 2007 reimbursement cap, all online submissions and faxes must be submitted by December 11, 2007.

Exempt Employees (Salary): The final 2007 pay date is December 28^th. For your Educational Assistance Reimbursement to be paid on that check and count towards your 2007 reimbursement cap, all online submissions and faxes must be submitted by December 18, 2007.

Any submissions received after these dates will be processed for payment on 2008 paychecks, and will count towards 2008 totals.

The Caremark Educational Assistance Program provides undergraduate and graduate level educational assistance benefits to eligible employees in order to help them improve or maintain job-related skills and enhance their ability to compete for jobs within Caremark.
This program is now an online system, as part of the PeopleSoft application. All forms must be completed online, and will route electronically for approvals.

Regular, full-time employees are eligible upon hire. However, only those courses started subsequent to hire date are eligible for reimbursement.

Assistance is for tuition, books, lab fees, registration and certain other expenses.

Reimbursement is 90% for an A, B or Pass; 50% for a C; and 0% for anything under a C.

The annual maximum reimbursement per calendar year is $4,000 for undergraduate coursework and $5,000 for graduate coursework. This reimbursement is non-taxable, and will appear on your regular paycheck. Employees must have at least a “Fully Meets” rating on their last performance review or be in good standing to be eligible to apply for assistance (this means employees cannot be on a Performance Improvement Plan in order to receive reimbursement).

Courses covered are those required in conjunction with a degree program and help employees improve or maintain job-related skills or enhance their ability to compete for other jobs within Caremark.

For employees who voluntarily leave the company subsequent to receiving educational assistance, the following payback provisions apply. If you voluntarily leave within 18 months of completion of any coursework, you are required to pay back the applicable percentage of financial assistance received:

•0 to 6 months = 100%

•6 to 12 months = 66%

•12 to 18 months = 33%

Requests for reimbursement must be turned in within 60 days of the end of the class.

The Educational Assistance Program is a three-part process: 1) Application into the Educational Assistance Program, 2) Pre-Approval of each term’s coursework, and 3) Reimbursement for completed courses. All forms must be completed and signed off before the next form will open online.

EMPLOYEE:

•Engage in a career planning and development discussion with your manager.

•Prior to beginning a course of study, complete the online Educational Assistance Program Application Form. This can be found on PeopleSoft: https://hr.caremark.com, under the Educational Assistance Program Employee Home Page. Once completed with all the school and coursework information necessary to complete your degree, you will submit automatically to your manager, then to HR, and finally to Learning and Development for approvals. Approvals will route electronically. NOTE: All employees must complete this form prior to submitting for pre-approval for their course.

MANAGER:

•Engage in a career planning and development discussion with your employee.

•Review the application form in your PeopleSoft worklist, verify the employee’s Performance Rating status, complete the comment field, and approve or deny.

•If approved, the application will electronically route to the HR approver for your site for additional approval.

•If not approved, email will be automatically generated to employee.

HR:

•Review the application form in your PeopleSoft worklist, verify that the employee is not currently on a Performance Improvement Plan, and submit approval or denial electronically. Approved applications will route automatically to Learning & Development administrator.

EMPLOYEE:

Must be completed at least three weeks prior to start of course.

•Engage in a career development discussion with your manager.

•Complete the online Educational Assistance Pre-approval form, which can be found on PeopleSoft: https://hr.caremark.com under the Educational Assistance program Employee Home page. Choose the classes you will be taking in the upcoming term from the pull-down menu, fill in estimated dates and costs, and click submit. Your pre-approval will route automatically to your manager and HR for approval. NOTE: All employees must complete this form prior to submitting for reimbursement. Once approved or denied, an email will be automatically generated to employee.

MANAGER:

•Review the pre-approval in your PeopleSoft worklist, verify the employee’s Performance Rating status, and approve or deny.

HR:

•Review the pre-approval form in your PeopleSoft worklist, verify that the employee is not currently on a Performance Improvement Plan, and approve or deny. Emails will automatically generate to employee.

EMPLOYEE: Upon completion of class/ receipt of grade report:

•Complete the online Educational Assistance Reimbursement form, which can be found on PeopleSoft: https://hr.caremark.com/psp/ps/?cmd=login, under the Educational Assistance program Employee Home page. Fill in your final data, including grades, actual course end dates, costs, etc. You must also fill in information about deferment plans, receiving grants or scholarships, etc. Once this information is complete, click submit, and your reimbursement form will route automatically to the Learning & Development administrator.

•Send copies of your grades and receipts (or deferment paperwork) to the Learning & Development administrator: Kathy Werning, NBT-2, by fax to 847-559-3560, or by email to kathleen.werning@caremark.com. Be sure to keep copies of anything you submit, in case it gets lost or destroyed. NOTE: Reimbursements will not be processed until the copies are received and verified by the Learning & Development Administrator. Any data that is incomplete or does not match the electronic entries will be returned for correction, and may result in payment delays.

•Once approved by the Learning & Development Administrator, an email will be automatically generated to employee, and data will be sent to payroll for payment.

Please click on the following links for more information about using the online Educational Assistance Program in PeopleSoft.

Online Educational Assistance User Guide

Online Educational Assistance FAQs

Online Educational Assistance Issues

Recording of Live Training Session of Online Educational Assistance Program

First published September 13, 2007
Copyright © 2007 Caremark Inc.

Back to top of page