County commission approves employee health insurance plan

A savings of nearly 30 percent on health insurance in 2013 because of a move to partially self-fund a plan for its employees means Cape Girardeau County will continue the method in the coming year.

County commissioners on Monday approved an annual plan with a $1.2 million cost for its 180 full-time employees. A third party, Mutual Medical Plans Inc., will also stay on as an administrator.

A health insurance committee headed by county clerk Kara Clark Summers reviewed the county's options for a plan and an administrator. Since the initial switch this year to a method of partial self-funding that encourages employees to shop around for the best-priced medical care saved the county 29 percent on its health care costs when compared to a fully-insured plan used until 2012, Summers said the committee looked only at keeping things as they were. The consideration that other similarly-sized entities, including local governments, keep coming up against higher costs, was also an important component in the committee's selection of a plan, Summers said.

"We know from hearing from others that they are just watching prices go up around them," Summers said. "With this plan we are actually able to avoid that for a second year in a row."

Two entities -- the city of Jackson and the Cape Girardeau School District -- recently switched providers or chose narrow-network plans to save money.

In 2012 looking ahead to this year, the county was facing a nearly 9 percent increase in the cost of health insurance for employees in 2013, so the county decided to stop using an insurance company to provide benefits. Renewal of the county's contract with Coventry Health Care for 2013 would have cost nearly $1.4 million in 2013.

Now the county asks employees to compare costs, follows a plan design set out by the third-party administrator and takes advantage of narrow network discounts and a wellness partnership, according to a letter outlining the committee's recommendation for 2014 from Summers to the commission. County employees who qualify for benefits receive a fully paid premium.

The commission on Thursday approved using Mutual Medical Plans Inc. as the third-party administrator after Summers presented information on the bids for the service the county received this year. The company was found by the committee to offer the best option in terms of cost-control measures, Summers said, and other bidders' proposals had hidden fees and startup costs. The county will pay about $76,000 for the administration of benefits in 2014, according to the proposal from the company.

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