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Commissioners discuss changing employee health benefits, including ER co-pay and clinic option
Summary
County leaders discussed multiple options to control health-care costs, including removing specialty drug coverage, adding a $250 emergency-room co-pay, pursuing a BluMine clinic for wellness services and exploring fully insured versus self-insured plans; Human Resources will present options at the next meeting.
Commissioner Chad A. Blessinger opened a broad discussion on employee health insurance options presented by Houchens Insurance Group, citing rising specialty-drug costs and other drivers of program expense.
The Commissioners discussed a range of options: removing specialty drugs from covered benefits; adding a $250 emergency-room co-pay to discourage non-emergency ER use; pursuing a BluMine Clinic partnership to provide employee wellness services; analyzing a move from self-insured to fully insured coverage; switching claims management from Hines to Care Connect; implementing tobacco-use premium tiers for additional discounts; and exploring spousal-coverage adjustments tied to outside insurance availability. No final decisions were made.
Blessinger recommended changing deductibles to $750 for individuals and $1,000 for families for wellness tiers and the same increases for non-wellness tiers; he also discussed raising premiums and maximum out-of-pocket amounts. Human Resources Generalist Rhodes was directed to prepare options for presentation at the next Commissioners meeting.
The discussion recorded several policy options and consensus to pursue additional analysis rather than immediate changes; any implementation would require further data, legal review and, where applicable, budget appropriation.
