October 12, 2002

Fringe Benefits Committee Minutes

 
Members Present:  Debbie Donnellan, Neosha Mackey, Howard Berriman, Ron boaz, Tamara Jahnke, David King, Janis King, Terri Oehm, John Satzinger, Art Spisak, Martha Tuttle.

Members not present:  Alphonso Johnson, Alex Trombetta

Visitors (from St. John's):   Susan Becker, Marti Hoffman

Ron Boaz, representing Staff, was introduced.  He works in HSC.  Has been in Staff Senate.

Overview of St. John’s Physicians and Hospital Billing Departments

Guests:  Marti Hoffman, Manager, Patient Business Services and Susan Becker,

Manager from Patient Billing Services.  Howard and Debbie met with Marti and discussed billing.  Debbie learned a lot and Howard suggested they come to our meeting.  Susan Becker stated that the doctors’ offices are the key to getting the claim into the system.  Goes through 4 sets of edits before claims are sent.  Med-pay processes claims and returns the EOB (explanation of benefits). Clean Claim—all information is correct on the form. Charges must be put in within 7 days of date of service.  St. John’s goes through a clearing house that Med-Pay has contract with also.  Once there is a self-pay balance a statement is generated and goes to the patient to be paid. Any dispute at that point goes to Marti’s dept. If patient walks in to the business office, the patient will see a manager to discuss the billing problem. Hospital is a separate billing.  Marti & Susan process bills for just the doctors—over 400. 

 Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) is effective as of Oct 16 2002, health care organizations must be in compliance with federal mandates.

 Janis King question. Problems with people trying to pay or office wanting a co-pay (we don’t have to do this). 120 some clinics doing the billing and it is almost impossible for each to know all of the insurance requirements.  Please call Marti when there is a problem at a doctor’s office.  May need to do extra training for clinics. Front desk employees are often the youngest and least experienced of workers. Co-Pay is NOT required for Missouri State employees.  A memo was sent to desk staff to NOT collect from Missouri State. Billing offices are on Glenstone near Cherry. Central registration will hopefully begin the first of the year.  St. John’s get the bill, we call, we talk with an outsource company which has about 40 people working on St. John’s accounts.  If bill is 90 days old, the company will call the covered person. John Satsinger described a problem with billing and how the billing organization called and didn’t correct mistake. This billing agency identifies themselves as St. John’s Physicians. For contact, put switchboard number or website for St. John’s. Website is also on the statement. If question sent on website, will get some kind of answer within 24 hours.   Seems deceptive that we don’t know we are dealing with a collection agency located in North Carolina

 Update from HB on Medical Insurance.  Health Care Committee reviewed all proposals and recommended to Ad Council that St. John’s be continued as the PPO.

 B. Report from Art Spisak on Vision Care Plans at peer institutions.

Art read info from websites from peer institutions. About half of the institutions had vision care.  Of those, coverage varied from almost meaningless to paying of exam yearly or every 2 years and then coverage for the actual glasses/contacts. Is this a valuable benefit and if so, committee needs to research it.  Vision plans often separated, not part of regular medical plan. Many people put it on the cafeteria plan. The planning committee would like to meet and come up with 3-4 items that are meaningful and as a group decide where to put our weight. Art & John are on subcommittee on Planning. Art stated that we aren’t out to bankrupt Missouri State or gouge it. We just want to feel on par with other universities with regard to benefits. Some suggestions were offered. Try to lower deductible on medical coverage. More coverage for preventative care and co-pay for physicians visits, instead of paying full until reaching deductible. Think big and give Keiser something to think about. Worst case is they say no we can’t afford it. This is what you get for your money.

Discussion of JK Hammons Hall and contact with Enoch Morris.  Janis King mentioned that faculty/staff could get a $3 discount at Hammons Hall but had to pay a $5 processing fee if they called in the order. 

Issues & Concerns Committee, Janis is on also. Tammy is on Planning also. Ron just signed up for Issues and concerns.

Neosha brought up holiday scheduling. Holiday schedule affects staff and 12 month administrators.

Some issues/ideas for the Fringe Benefits Committee to consider:

• Vision care
• Co-pay

• Lower deductible or improve coverage for preventative care
• Discounts for JKH & Bookstore
• Participation in Holiday scheduling (people with an interest need to send comments to the committees that do schedules and holidays (HR))

Parking paid as deductible on paycheck. Pay by the month instead of for the year. This was supposed to be made available as soon as more deduct slots were available on the pay stubs.   Debbie will investigate.

Art is chairing the planning subcommittee. How to divide up the issues. co-pay and preventive care. Art will look at preventative care and vision care.

Health Care Committee probably reports to VP for Admin Services. All issues that impact health care must go to the Health Care Committee. When making a report to Pres. Keiser, give funding needed and tell how we have discussed with Health Care Comm. and HB.

Issues:  Martha will report on wellness programs next time.  Bookstore discounts and discounts at JKH. Send bookstore questions to David King. Neosha will send the info about student employee and staff discounts for the Bookstore employees to everyone.

Cliff Davis was going to attend but we didn’t get on his schedule. Cliff wants a list of questions from us first. Will bring Mark Brixey.

Planning: Art, John, Tammy, Alphonso
Issues & Concerns:  Martha, Ron, Janis, Terri, David

Next meeting Thursday, November 14 at 2 p.m.