School board, Sangamon County partnering on employee health care

March 07--Springfield Public Schools and Sangamon County government are partnering in an effort officials say could save money on health insurance costs.

At Tuesday's school board meeting, Superintendent Jennifer Gill said the school district and the county sent out a proposal together for a health clinic to serve employees and family members on their insurance plan.

Memorial Medical Center in Springfield came back with the best offer, Gill said.

The goal, Gill said, is for employees to use any of Memorial's prompt care facilities for routine office visits, which the district hopes will cut down on expensive emergency room and ambulatory care costs.

Employees will benefit, she added, because it eliminates co-pays. In addition, Memorial is making other services available at no extra cost, including its 24-hour tele-nurse, virtual care service, bio-metric screening and wellness programs, Gill said.

The idea still needs to be approved by both the school board and county board.

Gill said Tuesday she expects that to happen for both boards at their next meetings on April 9.

"Employee health care costs continue to rise no matter where you are in the world," Gill said. "The goal is to realize some savings and keep our insurance rates in check."

In a phone interview Tuesday, Sangamon County Administrator Brian McFadden called the idea a "win-win" for employees and the board.

By partnering with the school district, he said, it added more employees into the pool, which keeps costs down.

But how much money the proposal will save taxpayers isn't immediately clear.

Both Gill and McFadden said Tuesday they did not have exact figures. Each did, however, call the savings "significant." They also added if employees see a doctor at HSHS St. John's Hospital, for example, they can continue to do so as before.

"We don't want to restrict anyone's health care needs," Gill said.

Also Tuesday, Gill said, the district is looking to update its textbook inventory system.

The current system, Gill said, is antiquated and not centralized, which makes it tough to know how many books are at each school and who has them.

With the new system, each textbook will have a bar code and students will be able to scan them out, similarly to how people check out books from a library, she said.

"This moves us into the next century," Gill said.

Contact Jason Nevel: 788-1521, jason.nevel@sj-r.com, twitter.com/JasonNevelSJR.

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