Kane County's Human Services Committee voted unanimously on Nov. 12 to renew a contract with Magellan Healthcare Inc. to provide the county's employee assistance program (EAP) for the coming year.

Vice Chair Michael Linder opened the discussion by placing the resolution before the committee. David Larson, the county's risk manager in Human Resources, summarized recent insurance work and the county's decision to continue Magellan as the EAP vendor. "We passed the resolution to renew insurance, worked with our new insurance broker Alliance to make some calculated decisions to lower our premium and to adjust coverage to maintain kind of the risk tolerance that we had as a county," Larson said. He added Safety National will continue to provide workers' compensation coverage while the county identified new carriers for some liability lines.

Staff told the committee the EAP benefit was adjusted after the county added first-dollar mental-health coverage to the employee health plan. "With the expansion of mental health benefits being included in the county's health plan, we went back from 5 covered visits to 3 to save a little money," staff said. The EAP remains available at no out-of-pocket cost to employees and includes appointment-assist services as well as non-mental-health support such as will-writing or help finding extended care for elderly relatives.

On utilization, staff said confidentiality and the program's anonymous design limit detailed, user-level reporting. "It's more on the range of probably, less than a 100 a year," Larson said when asked about contacts; "I'm thinking maybe 10%." He said Magellan can provide de-identified head counts (for example, site logins or phone contacts) that show usage without compromising anonymity.

Committee members discussed outreach and encouragement for employees to use the benefit. Miss Lewis suggested framing communications to highlight the three free EAP visits before employees use more costly medical visits. Several members praised the program's value and its low per-employee cost; staff said the EAP costs "less than a dollar per employee per month."

The motion to approve the Magellan renewal was moved by Miss Allen and seconded by Garcia. A roll-call vote recorded ayes from Allen, Garcia, Gripe, Lewis, Tarver and Linder; the motion passed unanimously.

What happens next: The committee approved the resolution and the renewal will proceed as described in the contract extension. Staff offered to obtain recent de-identified contact counts from Magellan and to continue outreach to increase awareness of the EAP across county departments.