The Board of Trustees voted in its March 21 meeting that health insurance rates will increase about 3 percent, while some premiums will decrease.
Thomas Kinghorn, vice president for Business Affairs, said Ball State University was a self-insured institution so the claims experience drove the decision on what increased and what decreased.
Claims experience are the costs associated with medical care. Kinghorn gave the example of a student who might get in an accident and the doctor would prescribe medications and possibly a hospital visit or prolonged care.
Those costs would be paid for by the student's parents' medical plan, he said. A student's family and others on the plan have claims experience where all the costs are added from everybody's care.
"So when I talk about claims experience I mean the cost associated with all the medical care that's provided to each of those several groups of employers," Kinghorn said.
When the new fiscal year begins in July, employees enrolled in the traditional family medical plan will contribute an additional $47.20 or 7 percent per month to participate. Single employees enrolled in the traditional health care coverage plan will contribute an additional $18.18 per month.
Ball State's portion of each employee's monthly health insurance costs will increase $141.60 for family coverage and $54.55 for individual coverage.
Employees enrolled in Ball State's low deductible, preferred provider organization insurance, will have increased premiums of 3 percent per month. That amounts to increases of $11.82 per month for family PPO participants and $4.56 per month for single PPO participants.
Kinghorn said about 90 percent of university employees use the PPO insurance. With the PPO, employees have a network of doctors and hospitals they can choose from, he said. The traditional plan allows employees to choose any provider they wish.
Employees also have the option to be covered by two high deductible insurance plans. Families enrolled in the wellness plan will have a 3 percent drop in premiums or about $9 a month. Single participants will save $3.36 a month. Families enrolled in the health savings account will see a 10 percent decrease in premiums or about $23 a month. Single participants will see a decrease of more than $8 per month.
The premiums are the amount employees and the employer pay, Kinghorn said. Ball State pays 75 percent of the costs and the employees pay 25 percent, which is taken out of their paychecks, he said.
Kinghorn said despite the increases in some plans, it was lower than the health care costs' national average of about 7 percent.
"Nationally, health care costs have been increasing at a rate faster than other segments of the economy," he said, "but these increases we're planning are low within the context of health care costs nationally."
Patty Hollingsworth, director of the Health Enhancement Program, said the university provided programs and classes faculty could take to improve their health and wellness. It makes sense that the healthier a person is, in the long term the fewer costs they would have to pay to visit the doctor for health issues, she said.
Recreation services offers a variety of programs for faculty to participate in, she said. There is also a Weight Watchers program and an adult fitness program, she said. A Diabetes program starts Thursday for faculty, their spouses and retirees.
She said she believed these wellness programs would have an effect on medical costs.
"You're trying to measure a non-event, [for example] the person who did not become diabetic," Hollingsworth said. "That's hard to do sometimes, but if you compare where you are to where your future rates are, you can also compare yourself with other companies that are like you. So if IU and Purdue have a similar medical plan and they do not have a wellness program we can compare [our costs] to them."
Kinghorn said he hoped in the future, the Board of Trustees could moderate the level of health care rates because of the increased emphasis on wellness and the university's efforts to reduce smoking on campus.
"Increased rates are consequences of the health care experience, so if [employees are] successful in avoiding health care costs then we have lower rates," Kinghorn said.
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