ECISD may alter health plans

The ins and outs of health care at the Ector County Independent School District went before district trustees Wednesday during a meeting to discuss possible future adjustments to employee health benefits in the face of rapidly increasing costs.

Though trustees only heard a report and took no action on the district’s employee health care plans, ECISD employees can expect to see an increase in their prescription medication co-pay costs beginning in January.

In unrelated business, the board voted in favor of applying for a state program that would give the district a chance to purchase antiviral medicine stockpile at a drastically discounted price, a measure that officials believe could stave off any possible threats a local flu pandemic could pose to ECISD operations.

ECISD Director of Communications Mike Adkins said the board’s approval gave administrators the ability to apply for the discounted Tamiflu medication, which the district would buy for about $14 per dose, significantly less than its normal price of approximately $70.

He said the details of exactly how many doses the district would buy and when it would receive them have yet to be worked out.

The district’s employee health care plan, however, took up the vast majority of the meeting.

Trustees heard from John Rahlss, the district’s financial adviser from the outside company First Financial Capital Corp. Rahlss gave trustees a detailed overview of the district’s employee health care plan, an almost entirely self-funded program that gives district officials tremendous input on what it offers its approximately 3,000 employees.

Despite all the discussion, the only upcoming change to the health plan — authorized by a special health care oversight panel comprised of four district administrators — is an increase in its prescription co-pays from the current $0 to $5 at retail pharmacies for a month’s worth of generic medications and from $0 to $10 at online pharmacies for a three-month supply of generic medications.

Although the district’s health insurance program generally is in "excellent financial position" today, Rahlss said rapidly increasing health care costs and trends projecting an overall deterioration of public wellness may jeopardize the program’s solvency in coming years.

When an employee accrues health care expenses, the district basically picks up the tab up to a certain dollar amount through the outside health insurance company Blue Cross Blue Shield, he said. But when the district’s health-related expenditures exceed what it takes in from employee premiums, co-pays and other revenue, the district closes the monetary gap by pulling money from a separate special endowment fund, which currently is expected to have a balance of about $2.7 million by the end of the year.

Despite a relative drop in the average dollar amount each employee requires for medical treatment during the past fiscal year, he said, longer-term projections show that the fund may need a minimum investment of $1.6 million to sustain it in the future — money that would have to be either allocated from the district’s general fund balance or otherwise obtained through measures like increasing each employee’s premiums by at least $39.50 per month.

Any price hikes in premiums, however, would not take effect until next school year at the earliest and only after further board discussion.

Looking further down the road, Rahlss presented several other cost-cutting options to the board, including one that would establish a clinic for district employees to would cut down on may of the district’s per-visit costs, a program that he said other Texas school districts have instituted in conjunction with local city and county entities to maximize cost efficiency.

He also outlined another possible program that would promote employee wellness by using a screening process to recommend a counseling program for individuals with unhealthy eating and lifestyle habits that could ultimately lead to expensive treatment.

Several trustees expressed concerns about some of the possible cost-saving programs, noting they wished to return to the issue before taking even the first steps toward implementation.

"So we’re going to increase premiums? We’re going to increase prescription costs? And we’re going to give people a questionnaire when …," Trustee Donna Smith said, pausing to look over at other board members. "Oh gosh."

None of these long-term options, however, were approved or even voted on by the board during Wednesday’s meeting, which on the issue of health care was merely an update.

Toward the end of the discussion, several trustees expressed their overall satisfaction with the current program’s structure and their intentions to keep costs as low as possible for its employees.

"It’s a good program," ECISD Superintendent Hector Mendez said, "but we have to look at the costs."