Issues2

Reducing Health Care Costs -

There are several ways to save money for the district, and for the employees. I have been
researching these solutions since before the Teacher's Union declared impass on the Health
Insurance issue. The impass forced me to postpone my research until after the impass hearing
was complete. Once the union declares impass, the school board members are, by law, not
allowed to speak with our own staff about any issues related to the impending hearing. Now that
the impass hearing has been completed, I have immediatley continued my pursuit of finding cost
saving soltions.

Health Clincs -
Clinics can be implemented many different ways. Harris Corporation and the City of Palm Bay
have implemented successful Health Clinic solutions. Health clinics have been implemented long
enough that there is solid trend data that when applied against Brevard Public School's
actuarials, will tell us whether we would save significantly on our claims. Many current clinic
models show significant savings to the organization's Insuance Trust fund. However every
organization has a different mix of employees, which produces different savings results.

1. Saving employees money on out of pocket health expenses. I am looking for a NO-COPAY
design. As a minimum, our employees who utilized the clinic would not pay a doctor visit copay,
and they would not pay a copay on non-narcotic medications. There are other service copays
that I would like to eliminate in a clinc solution. Eliminating copays will encourage employees to
visit the doctor sooner, before their medical condition worsens. Thereby reducing or eliminating
the amount of time the emplyee would miss work due to illness.

2. By having clinics readily available, the insurance trust fund would save on claims by not
having to pay a doctor. In the clinic senario, doctors do not bill the district for the visit. Also, by
having the clinics readily available, we can hopefully deter employees from running to the
emergency room for routine things like colds, flus and other non-criss needs. This would save
significanlty since emergency room care is VERY expensive. Also the cost of medication claims
would be alot less because the district would pay for medication based on the bulk, wholesale
price.

3. Timely doctors visits. Clinics will hopefully make doctors visits more convinient and quicker.
This too would allow employees to miss minimal work time. Remember, when teachers miss
work, or are out sick, we pay them, plus we pay the substitue.