Dyersburg State Gazette: Local News: County insurance committee ...

The Dyer County Insurance Committee held a called meeting on Tuesday morning, ahead of the budget meeting, to discuss the renewal option for the county insurance plan. In a meeting held last week, White & Associates presented the insurance committee with Cigna's proposed benefits renewal. The news was not what the committee was hoping for as the renewal package included a 35 percent increase over last year.

Larry White of White & Associates opened the meeting by clarifying a point made in the Sunday, May 20 edition of the State Gazette where a reference was made to how many hydrocodone prescriptions were filled under the plan in the 2011-2012 year. According to the story titled, "County insurance committee reviews Cigna renewal, $320K increase," of the 128 participants (employees, spouses and children) in the county insurance plan, 39 individuals filled 117 prescriptions for the drug (primarily used to relieve moderate to severe pain) between July 1, 2011 and Feb. 29, 2012. The information was based on a report provided by White & Associates to the committee of the top 25 prescription drugs by utilization.

"This is a normal amount of usage of this particular medication," said White. "It is the drug of choice and it is the number one or two drug from every group."

White moved on to discuss the county's renewal options, which he said were not set in stone because he did not have final written confirmation. According to White, Blue Cross and Blue Shield did provide them with a quote but they were not competitive enough with the Cigna plan. As part of the updated benefit renewal package, Cigna provided White & Associates with a summary of expenses through May 19, 2012. In the last week there have been an additional 225 medical occurrences for county employees and an additional 182 occurrences for their spouses and dependents.

"We are still not trending the right way," commented Shelia Gurien of White & Associates.

The committee also spent some time reviewing the prescription renewal plan, which kept the co-payments for generic prescriptions at $5 but changed the co-payments for non-generics, brand and specialty medication. Preferred prescriptions increased to $25 while brand prescriptions increased to a $50 co-payment. Under the current plan, a $200 deductible had to be met by the employee, spouse or dependent. The renewal will change that deductible to $250 for brand prescriptions only. County Highway Superin-tendent Jeff Jones asked representatives for White & Associates if the renewal would honor the deductible employees have already met this year. Gurien responded that she was not sure and would have to confirm that it would.

"The deductible and out-of-pocket is the biggest difference with the prescription renewal," said Gurien.

Jones also asked about educating county employees on the advantages of purchasing a 100-day supply of generic prescriptions for $10 as opposed to the 30-day supply for $5, which would save the county money. Gurien said that they currently do help with that and many pharmacies are proactive about informing consumers about the advantages of 100-day supplies.

After all the facts were provided to the committee the discussion turned to how to fund the significant Cigna increase. Mayor Richard Hill suggested that the county's worker's compensation fund be used to cover the additional expense for this year rather than placing the burden on the county's general fund.

"We've used it in years past and it builds back up pretty quickly," said Hill.

Commissioner Kyle Reynolds entered a motion that the committee accept the Cigna renewal package contingent upon not receiving a better offer before July 1 from another insurance provider. In addition, Reynolds' motion accepted the prescription renewal plan and the recommendation that $111,000 be used from the worker's compensation fund to cover the increased costs. The motion was seconded by Commissioner Jim Horner and unanimously approved.

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