City Council Considers Possible Changes In Health Benefits

The city of Lebanon offers more than a few benefits to employees, including basic health insurance premiums that are paid by the City. The City is self-insured with stop-loss insurance in place to handle claims costs above a certain level. They also use third-party administrators to handle the claims and other paperwork related to insurance for the employees. On Monday night, City Council was asked to switch the third party administrator from Meritain who has been handling the business for the city for more than 20 years to a company called Auxiant. Chris Mechem with First State Insurance and agent of record says Auxiant has a better plan, with a fixed administration fee of $112-thousand. He also recommended a specialty prescription drug program called Sharx which could help address some of the high claims related to prescription drugs, and he said while with Meritain they were looking at a 28 percent increase, with Auxiant the increase would only be 25 percent.

Council approved the switch which will be reviewed in January, and that’s when City Administrator Schumacher said the City is going to have to discuss how they are going to move forward….

The City spends around $3-million-dollars a year on insurance and out-of-pocket cost for employees. Sharx Enrollment is $37,800 with an estimated savings of $400-thousand for prescription drug costs.