Kane County HR: July Blue Cross invoice $1.4 million; one-month claims spike noted as likely timing effect

Kane County human-resources staff told the Human Services Committee Wednesday that the Blue Cross Blue Shield invoice for July totaled about $1,400,000 and that the agenda packet now includes a claims breakdown requested by the board.

"If you turn to page 15, it breaks down the Blue Cross Blue Shield invoice," Christine Davis, human resources, said. "I do wanna, show you the bottom. The total number of claims have been added. I know that was the request from the board. So that's been included."

Committee members noted a short-term spike in claims in prior months and asked whether the county could identify causes such as seasonal care or back-to-school visits. Jamie, the county's executive department head for human resources, explained that claims filings can lag the date of service and said: "They have 6 months to submit a claim following the date of service. So we can't really correlate that to anything specific."

Why this matters: committee members said they will monitor month-to-month and year-over-year trends to see if the spike persists. "If it were something that were to continue for several months, we would certainly, address our broker to try to to look for a cause," Jamie said.

Other notes: the packet included reports from Assured Partners, and a separate page lists total employees, spouses, dependents and plan participants. A committee member asked staff to consider providing greater granularity in future reports if recurring spikes occur.

Ending: Staff recommended continued monitoring and follow-up with the county's broker if elevated claims persist over multiple months.