County employees facing higher insurance costs

Nov. 24--After several months of meeting and study, the newly-formed Daviess County Insurance Committee has recommended changes to the health insurance plan that will mean more money coming from employee pockets.

The big driver on the increase is that medical costs are projected to increase on the county plan by $150,000 this year. The committee has suggested and the commissioners accepted a proposal that will increase employee contributions, deductibles and co-pays for health services.

"We want to be the best employer in Daviess County," said Commissioner Nathan Gabhart, who served on the insurance committee. "We want the best benefits package. We want no turnover. We want to be fair and open and honest to our employees, but we have to get these costs under control."

For years the county has offered the employees insurance for the individual at $1 per year. That will change after the first of the year with that amount increasing to $10 per pay period. Officials called the increase along with some higher deductibles and co-pays a last resort maneuver.

"There are three pockets involved in health insurance, the health provider, the insurance vendor and our employees," explained Gabhart. "We need to make certain the vendors we hire provide the best value. We need to make sure we get our return on investment from them. We need to make sure providers are offering the greatest discount and whatever gap that remains has to come from our employees. We want to use the employees last, but at some point in time they have to participate. We tried to mitigate it as much as we could. We kept it as low as we could."

The county is doubling its deductible to $1,000.

"The $500 deductible is a thing of the past," said Gabhart. "The out-of-pocket limits, the families, employee and spouse and employee and dependents are already paying significant out-of-pocket, some of them $6,000, $7,000 and $8,000 per year. There was no question that had to change. I think once they add that all up, see the assistance programs available, it's much lower than it could be."

The county will be receiving some discounts from Daviess Community Hospital. The offer has the county not only encouraging employees to use the local hospital for services, but also offering some discounts on deductibles for using the hospital.

"We can use providers to help adjust our costs," said Gabhart. "We want to drive cases to DCH that can be serviced there. It's just a win-win. They are one of the largest employers in our county. It lowers our cost, increases their productivity and encourages them to have more people work there. The folks though still have a choice."

This is the first health insurance project worked out by the insurance committee. One change that is coming is that the county will be changing the effective date for its insurance will be moving from Jan. 1 to Aug. 1 to tie it closer to the budget process. Gabhart says he feels good about the way the committee worked out.

"Patty Ball (county auditor) was a tremendous asset to the committee and bringing people together so we could work on this," said Gabhart. "We did not have a lot of time on this, only August to November. I am excited to see what we can do when we have a full year to look at it."

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