Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Employee Health Benefits topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Hancock County approves health plan renewal, raises some employee contributions
Summary
The Hancock County Board of Supervisors voted 5-0 on March 20 to renew the county’s employee medical plan with Blue Cross of Mississippi under a broker-recommended option that raises certain employee copays and some employee premium contributions to help cover higher-than-expected claims.
Hancock County Board of Supervisors on March 20 approved renewal of the county employee health plan and changes to employee contributions after a presentation from the county’s insurance broker.
The county’s insurance broker, Smith with Hub (insurance consultant), recommended renewing the county’s medical plan with Blue Cross of Mississippi under the broker’s “option 3” and pairing it with a revised gap plan. Smith said the renewal originally came in as a 25% increase and was negotiated down to 20%.
Smith said the plan has been running “high” and walked supervisors through proposed benefit design changes that the broker said would help reduce the county’s increase. Key recommendations included keeping the employee deductible at $1,000 while increasing the plan’s maximum out-of-pocket, raising primary care copays from $15 to $25 and specialist copays from $25 to $40, increasing urgent-care copays to align with industry benchmarks, and increasing the pharmacy deductible to $100. Smith also recommended pairing the Blue Cross plan with a revised gap plan (referred to in the presentation as “Moria White”) that would pay a portion of catastrophic costs so the county could maintain a richer plan design.
The broker provided example monthly premium impacts and showed an employer/employee contribution split under option 3. Board discussion included confirmation of the renewal timeline and the need to decide before open enrollment; staff said open enrollment would begin the following week and that payroll deductions for the May 1 coverage effective date are processed the month before (first payroll with deductions April 11).
After discussion, District 4 moved to approve “option 3” with the recommended changes to employee contributions; District 3 seconded. The board voted Districts 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 — motion carries, 5-0.
The board instructed staff to proceed with open-enrollment communications to employees and to implement the approved plan changes on the stated schedule.
