ROBERT PIERCE
• Leader & Times
Seward County commissioners recently approved a benefits package for county employees for Fiscal Year 2025.
The unanimous vote came after reviewing options at the commission’s March 3 meeting, and the final negotiated renewal saw an 11.5 percent increase, an estimated total increase of $507,913.
The package commissioners passed included increased employee and family contributions of $55 and $335 respectively, with the grandfathered policy remaining in place and continuance of the IMA Rx prescription program.
“We’ll renew the dental and group life insurance as it is, along with enhancing voluntary life option with Advance, adding the voluntary vision through Blue Cross Blue Shield of Kansas and move the Employee Assistance Program to Lucet Health,” Commission Vice Chair Tammy Sutherland-Abbott said as she made a motion to accept the package.
Before IMA Account Executive Nick Johnson discussed options with commissioners, Administrator April Warden reviewed a few other numbers, including flat administrative costs, and she added IMA was able to negotiate a decrease of $22,572 in those costs contingent upon adding voluntary vision with Blue Cross Blue Shield of Kansas.
“This would be 100 percent optional to the employee at their expense. Life insurance with advance would 100 percent optional and paid by the employee,” Warden said. “Moving our EAP to Lucet Health would be 100 percent paid by us as the employer.”
The county implemented IMA’s pharmacy program last May, and Warden said this has saved the county $114,000 in prescriptions.
“Based on the current utilization, there is still $300,000 plus in saving opportunities for members of our staff who are not engaged in the IMA pharmacy program,” she said.
Warden said no matter which plan commissioners chose, all would include the Tria Health remaining in effect, the IMA pharmacy advocate program, the addition of an optional vision plan, a new EAP through BCBSKS and an upgraded optional life insurance plan.
Warden then discussed a recent employee survey, in which 157 county workers responded.
“The first question was how satisfied were they with our current health and dental insurance plan, and 108 responded with very satisfied,” she said. “We asked, ‘How important is it to you to have comprehensive health coverage?’ And 143 of the 157 said very important to them. We also asked, ‘Which of the following would you prefer the commissioners to consider?’ In the survey, we did not give them the option of just keeping the benefits as they were, but to increase the employee contribution to $55, which is a $5 increase for employees only and $335, which was a $35 increase for employees to keep the same coverage and plan design. You had 117 members who responded for that option.”
Warden said employees were offered three options for deductibles, with employee contributions decreased based on the plan they chose, and commissioners would also consider a pay raise of 3 to 5 percent. She said 30 employees responded in favor of this.
Commissioner Presephoni Fuller thanked all involved for doing the survey.
“It is important employees know we want to hear their voices too,” she said. “Although decisions will be made, at least they were invited to the table, so I appreciate that.”
Johnson then examined the options for the commission, including a dual option that would see a $500 deductible plan paired with a $1,000 deductible plan that would lower the renewal increase to 8.3 percent or $388,000.
“This is assuming about 30 percent of migration into that $1,000 deductible plan,” he said. “Similar to the renewal, we have negotiated admin, lowering it about 0.5 percent.”
Under this plan, Johnson said there would also be changes to co-insurance, with an increase $1,000 and maximum out of pocket costs increasing to $5,000.
“There would be some copay changes,” he said. “There would be a copay that would apply to office visits at $25. Employees would get their ACA preventative care services done at $0 copay or paid for at 100 percent. There would also be a lab and X-ray allowance of up to $300, and once that’s exhausted, it would the apply to deductible and co-insurance.”
Johnson said there would also be a copay of $250 for emergency room visits, and a third tier of pharmacy would be added, giving employees a $45 copay for specialty drugs.
“With all these changes and assuming 30 percent migration into the $1,000 deductible plan, that lowers the renewal down to 8.3 percent, which is about $183,000 less than the renewal as is,” he said.
Johnson then visited the dental renewal for 2025, which he said saw a decrease of about 2.9 percent, or just less than $6,000.
“We did not review any alternative plan,” he said. “Design options was a good renewal. We do have three separate contribution illustrations. There’s two based on the renewal and one based on the dual option.”
Johnson said the first contribution model would keep the renewal as is with no plan design changes.
“It also looks at keeping employee contributions the same,” he said. “Total premiums would be picked up at $566,000. This includes medical and dental. Employees would be picking up $0, and the county would be picking up the full $566,000.”
Johnson said option two would keep percentages the same for employees.
“Right now, employees are paying about 4.4 percent of their total premium on the employee only tier,” he said. “On the family tier, they’re paying 12.1 percent. We would keep that the same.”
Moving on to the 2025 renewal, Johnson said the impact to employees would be a $5 a month increase and $35 for the family tier.
“When we look at total dollar amount, employees would be picking up $58,000 of the recommended $566,000 increase,” he said. “The county would be picking up $507,000 of that contribution.”
The third contribution model used a $500 deductible with the same contributions currently used.
“At $50 and $300 for family, we also lowered employee contributions on the $1,000 deductible option,” Johnson said. “It gives employees a little bit of choice, and if they want to enroll in that higher deductible, they can see some savings on their monthly paycheck.”
Johnson said the option of $25 contributions for employee only and $250 for family would show an actual decrease of about $30,000, with the county picking up $412,000 in costs.
Johnson said no matter which plan commissioners chose, the county could remain grandfathered on its benefits package. He added group life insurance would see an increase of just less than 2 percent.
“The total annual amount was a $687 yearly increase,” he said. “This is pretty standard as far as a cost of living adjustment or an inflation type increase. Advance also presented an additional voluntary life option. Employees have the option to elect a $25,000 flat voluntary life benefit.”
The advance option, Johnson said, would allow employees to choose anywhere from $10,000 to $500,000, and it would have a guaranteed issue of $200,000.
“Employees wouldn’t have to answer any type of health questionnaire or health profile in order to elect an amount up to that $200,000, which is a really competitive benefit,” he said.
Participation in the Advance voluntary life insurance is currently at 30.8 percent, and Johnson said if that rate falls below 30 percent, the policy will non-renew. He added only two employees either leaving or not renewing their policy would put that rate under 30 percent.
“This benefit could potentially be canceled,” he said. “The benefit of this is it does give employees the option to choose a different amount than the flat $25,000 they have. As far as rates right now, it’s a flat $17.50 a month. If an employee wants to enroll in this coverage, the proposed rates will vary. It’ll be based on the benefit amount they elect, and it’ll also be based on their age.”
For those younger than 55 who elect to take then $25,000 life insurance benefit, Johnson said their rate would actually go down from the current rage.
“It’s about 37 total employees,” he said. “Anyone above 55 would be seeing an increase to their monthly rate. That includes about 30 employees.”
Johnson said IMA did go out to market for vision insurance for the county.
“This is something the county currently does not offer,” he said. “This would be a standalone vision policy completely separate from the medical. We went out to Blue Cross who has a partnership with IMED, a vision care direct billing and settlement plan, and we did go out to IMED directly as well. Some of these benefits are slightly different depending on the carrier.”
Under the BCBSKS vision plan, employees would have a $10 copay for exams and a $25 copay for materials.
“As far as an allowance, employees would be to receive a $180 allowance on their contact lenses,” Johnson said. “Anything above that $180, they would also get a 15 percent discount. Frames is very similar – $180 allowance and 20 percent off the balance over $180.”
Johnson said vision rates would range from $9 to $28 per month depending on the tier the county enrolls in, and these rates would be guaranteed for four years.
“We also looked at moving EAPs to Lucet, which is Blue Cross’s preferred vendor,” he said. “It would increase the number of sessions from one session to eight. It would be an overall increase of about $4,000 to the county, but if you pair this together with the $22,000 admin credit, it is a benefit to employees being able to have eight sessions instead of one. The one session makes it difficult because it might discourage employees from utilizing that benefit because they know they only have one session.”
Johnson said he did confirm with BCBSKS in the first year, if employees did not utilize the eight session visits, it could be lowered to either three or six sessions later.
Johnson said IMA’s recommendation was to continue to renew at the grandfathered plan design with no changes to benefits.
“I think with continuing to promote and steer employees to the IMA pharmacy program, there’s still $300,000 in potential savings that are out there and about 25 non-engaged members,” he said. “We would also recommend with renewing benefits, the same increasing employee contributions – $55 for employee only and $335 for a family renewing – as is on dental and the group life insurance and moving foward with the bundle of enhancing the voluntary life, adding the vision and moving the EAP to Lucet Health. The overall impact for medical, dental, life and EAP for the county would be about a $490,000 increase over current.”
