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Employee Benefit Trust Minutes - 01/11/2011 City of Wichita Falls Employee Benefits Trust Board Minutes January 11, 2011 The meeting was held in the City Council Conference Room, 1300 Seventh Street, Wichita Falls, TX 76301. Present: Darron Leiker, City Manager Jim Dockery, Asst. City Manager/CFO Miles Risley, City Attorney Tammy Guerra, Human Resources Manager Becky Chapman, Employee Benefits Coordinator Ken Phillis, On-Site Clinic Physician's Assistant Valerie Phillips, On-Site Clinic Practice Manager Randy Martell, Principal of IPS Brent Weegar, Employee Benefits Specialists of IPS Agenda Items: i. Call to Order: Meeting was called to order at 9:00 am. ii. Approval of Minutes: Motion was made by Jim Dockery to approve the November 18 , 2010 minutes, second by Tammy Guerra. The motion carried unanimously. iii. The discussion with KPA Med regarding recent employee benefits satisfaction survey results, IPS recommendation, and strategic planning for the employee clinic-Tammy began by stating that KPA Med received a letter in December 2010 about the subjects that were going to be discussed in the January EBT meeting. Since this was the first time Ken (KPA Med) and IPS had met, Randy from IPS introduced himself to Ken and gave him a brief summary of IPS and their role with the City of Wichita Falls. Brent with IPS started by saying that they are looking to build long term objectives with the On-Site Clinic that included employee satisfaction, medical electronic reporting, and focusing more on efficiency/values. On-Site Clinic Financial History Included with the letter to KPA Med were employee benefits satisfaction survey results, to give Ken an idea of the employees' perception of the clinic. Brent asked Ken for his opinion on the survey results and financial history on the clinic. Ken stated that he does not have any information on the financial history and that Jim Dockery would be the one that has that information. Ken did mention that there are more services being provided now than when the clinic started. Jim added that since the City of Wichita Falls changed the Clinic contract from Joe Bryan to KPA the City has saved approximately $170,000 per year. Jim did not have enough data to analyze the savings, if any, of the clinic. Brent stated that the best way to start gathering the information they need is by separating the reasons employees go visit the on-site clinic (workers comp, primary care, etc.). After collecting the data IPS would benchmark it against what the reasonable cost would be and decide if it would save the City money. r , On-Site Clinic Utilization IPS asked for an idea of what Ken believed to be the majority of clinic visits. Ken said that the clinic is seeing more preventive and primary care visits than the work related visits (Workers Compensation injuries, drug tests and pre- employment). Daily, the clinic receives between 30-35 calls and schedules between 10-12 patients just for prescription refills. IPS needs a way to get the data into a reporting format. Jim suggested starting off with the reports they already have, which is the financial report and a report that is sent out by Dave Johnston that breaks down the visits as either employee physical, primary/preventative, or workers comp. IPS would like additional data collected as to why the patient is being seen and they strongly suggested the implementation of an electronic medical reporting system. The usage of it will facilitate preparing the reports they need. Brent presented the data that was collected from the employee benefits satisfaction survey and it showed 29-30% of employees are utilizing the clinic. IPS suggested the clinic needed to drive between 50-55% participation to make it cost effective. They believe to accomplish this goal they need to focus on increasing the number of visits and making it more efficient for the employee. Recently, the majority of the clinic traffic has been attributed to physicals that have been scheduled due to the implementation of the Wellness program. On-Site Clinic's Appearance Ken stated that the physical appearance of the clinic hinders employee usage. He believes it is too crowded and suggested moving a wall or rearranging the office to make it more aesthetically pleasing. Ken also mentioned it would be a good idea to also add a reception area, so it would have more of a clinic look. Ken also suggested that we add a restroom which would allow for the drug screens to be held inside the clinic. Jim stated that they have looked at the option in previous years and mentioned it was not feasible due to the plumbing. He said that he would speak with the Building Maintenance Department to confirm. Privacy and Confidentiality of the On-Site Clinic The primary concern listed in the employee benefits satisfaction survey results was privacy and confidentiality. Employees mentioned that they avoid the clinic because they feel their conversations can be overheard, anyone walking by can see into the waiting room, and they are concerned about there private medical information being divulged. Miles suggested that maybe the link between HR and the clinic may be confusing employees. It creates an impression that the clinic is part of the City, when in fact, it is not. A suggestion was made by Miles that employees pay their co-pay at the clinic instead of HR which may take the negative perception away. Communication Both Ken and IPS believe more effective communication about the different services the clinic provides would be helpful. There are lots of employees that are not aware of what the clinic offers. A suggestion of having Ken present to different departments was brought up. Ken also added that he would be happy to speak with different departments and that he had already visited with the Fire department. Miles suggested adding an article in the RoundAbout/Wellness newsletter would also expand communication about the on-site clinic. 1On-Site Clinic Hours of Operation The question was brought up if the on-site clinic should be open longer hours ' and if this would benefit employees. Ken stated that in past years the clinic was open from 7:00 am- 6:00 pm and there was hardly any employees coming in after 3:00 pm. Jim agreed that extending the hours is not a good use of the on- site clinic. On-Site Clinic Employee Benefits Satisfaction Survey IPS asked Ken what he thought about the surveys that employees filled out about him and the on-site clinic. Ken stated that he was not surprised of the answers and mentioned he is not there to please them but to let them know what they need to do to get better. He stated that he believed that the way the questions were asked on the survey resulted in the negative comments. He added that he has a lot of patients that thank him and are pleased with his services. IPS suggested moving forward that the clinic start using satisfaction cards at the end of each visit. iv. Consideration and possible approval of extending the deadline of Wellness physicals at the On-Site Clinic - Tammy stated that almost half of the participants have scheduled their physicals with the on-site clinic. The clinic has not been able to accommodate the demand of wellness physicals by February 1st, 2011. Tammy suggested extending the deadline to April 1st, 2011 which is the end of the second pay cycle. Motion was made by Jim Dockery to approve the extension, second by Tammy Guerra. The motion carried unanimously. In addition, a motion was made by Tammy Guerra to approve any employee that gets a physical in 2011 to count towards 2012; it was second by Jim Dockery. The motion was carried unanimously. iv. Open Session- Miles brought up the idea of requiring the retirees who are on the City's health insurance to the complete a Wellness physical next year. Becky stated that it will be a challenge to inform the retirees of the changes. It will be discussed further in another EBT meeting. v. Financial Report- Jim Dockery explained that we started the last fiscal year which ended in September 2010 with a deficit of $167,493. This brought the fund balance from $1,990,000 to $1,822,520. vi. Adjourn at 10:35 am.