CoxHealth recently extended benefits to same-sex partners. Why the change? Our health plan indicates we will cover a spouse. The legal definition from state to state has been shifting around for quite some time. We saw a need to provide some clarification to that definition. We haven’t really changed anything; in all honesty, we just haven’t had too many people come forward wanting it. When the court decision was handed down in St. Louis, we saw a real need to clarify. We updated with our fall open-enrollment mailer, a clarification which essentially said same-sex couples legally married in jurisdictions that recognize their marriages, they will also be recognized as married for purposes of our health, dental, vision, flex spending and life insurance. The definition of who a spouse is has always been there. We just wanted clarification with our workforce.
How many people are using the new policy? We have had seven couples who joined the plan who haven’t in the past. We are part of the BJC Collaborative, comprising five other health systems in Missouri and Illinois. They all also have similar practices. It’s good to be a part of a larger group like that because you can share best practices.
In terms of plan costs, what has been the effect on the system? CoxHealth subsidizes about 75 percent of the overall premium. If you were to try to get our employee health plan through private insurance or through the exchange, you are going to pay substantially more. It’s probably about a $600 per month plan. When we look at that, it’s around $5,500 per person, per year, but it’s an investment in our employees and our covered dependents. That’s a $35,000 to $40,000 cost to cover these individuals, but we look at it as a very important retention tool.
Does Cox HealthPlans provide coverage for the plan? Cox HealthPlans is our third-party administrator for the plan. Overall, our plan is self-funded. CoxHealth and our employees combine to pay premiums into an account. Every time someone comes to get care, money comes out of that account to pay for it. We merely use Cox HealthPlans to manage our members and adjudicate claims.
In an effort to attract and retain workers, how often do you evaluate and change employee benefits? For the most part, these plans tend to be living legal documents. The smart employer wants to make sure their plan is as clear as possible so the employee and the dependents on those plans know exactly how the plan functions. There is no question as to what or who is covered.
These are calendar-year based plans. Once you put it into play for the year – which traditionally we are starting now to ready ourselves for the open-enrollment period this fall – typically you are going to leave it alone. That is not always the case. You can make midyear modifications to the plan. A couple years ago, we made an enhancement to the plan regarding specialty medications. On an annual basis, we are constantly reworking our plan and making adjustments. We are in the middle of a longer-term phase-in for our wellness plan.
CoxHealth is the second-largest employer in the area. Overall, how many employees are on the plan? We have close to 7,000 of our 10,000 employees that are on our health plan. We have right at 13,000 total lives on our health plan; that’s about 6,000 dependents. That’s a great thing, and we pride ourselves on that coverage. Of that population, we retain about 85 percent of that coverage in-house here at Cox.
This installment of Springfield Business Journal’s Architects & Engineers Project Report showcases 26 endeavors by area design and engineering professionals.
