Catoosa officials outline stats on county employee health benefits
Catoosa County has a very good benefits package for employees — and more employees are starting to realize it and take advantage of it, Catoosa CFO Rachel Clark told commissioners at their April 16 meeting.
Todd Hooper, assistant vice president of NFP, the county’s benefits broker, outlined some statistics and concerns about employee health insurance at the meeting.
Hooper compared statistics from the last contract period, July 1, 2022 to June 30, 2023, to the current period to date, July 1, 2023 to Feb. 29, 2024.
The largest portion of the employees benefit package is medical, Hooper said. He said the next period, 2023-24, will involve a slightly more than 10% increase. Clark said that will not impact the county’s budget since the benefits account has $1.7 million in it at this time.
Last period, Hooper said, 517 people made claims. This period it has been 728. The number of prescriptions written last period was 3,037. The current period it’s been 8,263. The amount paid out per claimant during the last one-year period was $1,132. The current period has been $2,468 — more than double the last period.
Hooper said inflation accounts for some of the rise in costs, but other factors come into play, too. Some medical procedures of the past are treated today with medications. Diabetic drugs can run $800-$1,100 a month. Diabetic management drugs are increasingly being used for weight loss, something not usually approved under the plan.
Another cause of increased cost, Hooper said, is cancer specialty medications. With the pandemic, he said, people missed screenings they would have normally had and now the medical establishment is seeing more Stage 3 and Stage 4 cancers, rather than stages 1 and 2, and more aggressive treatment is necessary to treat them.
The number of county employees in what is called the Employee Assistance Program, which includes health care, has increased slightly from the prior period to the current one, from 364 to 375. But the total number of people covered by the program when including dependents of employees is 807 now, compared to 763 during the last period.
In the prior period, of the 763 members, 530 made claims (69%). In the current period, of 807 members, 773 made claims (95%).
Hooper said that in 2021, there were 45 “high cost” claimants. In 2022, there were 31 and in the current period that started in 2023, there have been 30. The total cost of medical care and medications for the six highest-cost claimants in the current period has been $936,000.
Total claims for the current period, to the end of February, said Hooper, have been over $4 million.
There are ways to bring costs down, Hooper told commissioners. One way would be to utilize the county Health and Wellness Center more often and more efficiently.
The center, Hooper said, offers biometrics that can be helpful. The website cancer. gov defines biometrics thus: The science of collecting and analyzing biologic or health data using statistical methods. Biometrics may be used to help learn the possible causes of a cancer or how often a cancer occurs in a certain group of people. Also called biometry and biostatistics.
Hooper said the Wellness center can help detect if people are at risk of developing or in the early stages of diabetes, hypertension and/or COPD and help them get onto a path of prevention.
The Wellness Center, Hooper said, can even help lower the costs of prescription drugs by buying them direct and billing the county, rather than the county having to pay for drugs that come through its healthcare provider, United Health Care, which often sends prescriptions through its pharmacy plan where the price gets marked up.
Catoosa County has a new benefits specialist, Chareen Humble, who spoke to commissioners briefly during Hooper’s presentation. Humble said she was working on a health fair for October, which will be funded by United Healthcare. She said the Wellness Center would be there to perform biometrics and screenings.
Hooper said there may be money available for health coaches people would be able to see three times a year, which would help them keep on track with lifestyle changes, like exercising and more nutritious eating.
The board voted unanimously to renew its contract with NFP.