Health Insurance Benefit Committee Meeting
The first combined Starling health insurance committee will meet on the evening of September 8th. This committee will work with our broker, OneDigital (formerly Ovation), on a recommendation for employee health insurance for next year. Like most employers in Connecticut and nationally, the rising cost of health insurance costs is a significant issue each year. In 2015, the combined health insurance expense for Grove Hill and CMG was over $7.5 million. With such a large expense, it is easy to see how double digit increases, which are not uncommon, can considerably increase a company’s overhead.
Prior to the merger, both CMG and GH utilized self-insured plans with insurance covering a stop loss limit. The trend for employers has been to move toward high deductible plans (HDP) as a means to lower the annual increases that were occurring year over year. CMG made the move to a single high deductible plan in 2013, whereas the majority of Grove Hill participants were on a traditional co-pay plan. That changed with the merger this year, so that Starling is now all HDP.
The move to a high deductible plan is never popular with employees, but unfortunately it has become necessary to keep total employer healthcare costs down. In 2015, GH’s cost per participant was 16% higher than CMG’s, which was the reason behind the move to an all HDP. We are hopeful that trends in 2016 will improve with the move to a single HDP design.
The health insurance benefit committee will have an in-depth understanding of the trends and evaluate the different plan design options prior to making a recommendation to the Starling board. They will work to balance both the costs to our valued employees – being health insurance participants themselves – and the fiduciary responsibility of managing employer costs. Another component to be considered, which is unique to a physician group, is “who is the most provider payer friendly insurance company?”
As you can see, there are many influential factors related to health insurance decision. The committee is still looking for members, so hopefully this article has encouraged a few more willing physicians to serve. Please contact me if you are interested at mvye@starlingphysicians.com