Audit to be performed on county’s employee health insurance

A health insurance audit will be performed on Houston County employees to help save the county money and also on trash cans due to some residents not paying for extra cans.

At Tuesday’s Houston County Board of Commissioners meeting, Ken Carter, personnel director, gave an update on the health insurance.

Chairman Tommy Stalnaker said they recently met with their health carrier who informed them what to expect for next year on their health insurance and discussed ways in which they can handle their health insurance. Their administrative fees will increase by $109,000.

An insurance audit will be conducted on all of the employees. Stalnaker said other entities that have been able to perform an audit were able to purge their roll of people who were on their insurance and were not supposed to be on it. He said health insurance is a large part of the county’s budget and is a necessary thing.

Stalnaker explained that they have a great insurance plan, which is one of the reasons why they have been able to retain employees because of the benefits they have received. He said they have to look at every nook and cranny they can to try to minimize the cost to the county and also to hold the rate down for the employees.

Carter said the audit will affect 356 out 647 current employees who have dependents on their plan. He said by the end of the week, he wanted to send out information to employees, which will explain why they’re doing the audit, and they will give a list of documents that employees will need to provide for every dependent that they have on their plan. Employees are being given until Dec. 2 to return this information, which is the last day of open enrollment.

Stalnaker advised that they make this a policy in the personnel manual. He said the goal is that everybody who is on the plan should be on it. He said this is a small way that they can begin to look at controlling cost. He said 43 percent of the people on their insurance plan are employees and 57 percent are dependents.

“That is one of the reasons we need to look at it and make sure all of those dependents on that plan are in fact still certified to be dependents,” Stalnaker said.

According to the federal law, Carter said an employee can carry their child up to the age of 26, who can also be married.

Furthermore, Advanced Disposal will do an audit on trash cans in Houston County, which has not been done since 1997. This audit will be performed by the company to get an accurate count of cans, not only for billing purposes but for efficient routing as well.

Representatives with Advanced Disposal said some additional cans are not being paid for by customers. They anticipate that about 1,000 cans will be picked up. Stalnaker noted either customers will pay for the additional can or it will be removed during the audit period.

The audit will begin Oct. 31, and it will take about four to six weeks to complete. For those customers who want to keep their second can, it will be redelivered with no redelivery fee only during this route audit period. The cost of the second can is $6 a month per can.

Some back doors have been provided a second can to swap. These will stay. There is no charge to these customers for the second can provided.

HHJ News