More county employees are seeking medical care at the Brown County Health and Wellness Center resulting in the county government paying less in health insurance bills.
The Brown County Commissioners voted in the fall of 2019 to provide memberships to Brown County Schools’ health clinic at Eagle Park to county employees as part of their benefits package, but more county employees need to use that clinic more to make that agreement feasible.
Health insurance costs continue to be an area of concern when it comes to the county’s budget. Last fall, the commissioners approved changes to the county employee preferred provider organization plan and high-deductible health plan for this year, including increasing premiums and deductibles for employees along with implementing spousal carve outs.
The commissioners also voted to eliminate co-pays for regular physician visits since the county offers the clinic as part of their insurance plan. The clinic is free to employees who go. Co-pays remain for specialist visits under the county’s PPO plan.
At the Feb. 16 commissioners meeting, county human resources coordinator Melissa Stinson said that county employee participation at the clinic was up to 56%.
“Which is what we were hoping to see this year. We are starting to see a decline in our billing coming from SIHO weekly,” she said.
SIHO Insurance Services is the county’s third-party administrator for their health insurance plan.
“There were 50 services provided in the month of January, so I am excited and hope to see an increase in this participation,” Stinson said.
“Since we did the spousal carve out and some people who went to Medicare, they still asked us if they could still belong to the clinic, so the clinic has done a contract and we’re getting ready to get a new form. They are paying it through their spouse or their own payroll, but they still want to be a member of the clinic because now they are established and they have a physician, which is hard to obtain currently,” Stinson said.
During her report to the commissioners, Stinson also said that the county has passes to the Brown County YMCA and Brown County State Park available for county employees to sign out and use as a way to encourage exercise.
The commissioners also approved buying $18 fitness trackers for any county employee who wants one. Previously, the county had paid half the cost of a Fitbit for county employees, totaling around $7,000, as a promotion to get employees up and moving around. That cost is covered by the county’s wellness fund. Purchasing the $18 trackers would cost $3,500 if every employee wanted one, Stinson said.
Commissioner Diana Biddle told Stinson to send out a questionnaire to county employees who are in the wellness program to see who would want a new tracker this year.
