5/29/97

ATHENS, Ohio -- President Robert Glidden announced today that Ohio University will provide university employees taking part in a new health benefits plan with a monetary offset that covers the initial annual family premium for a Preferred Provider Organization (PPO) plan that will be put into effect Jan. 1, 1998.

"We have listened carefully to our employee constituent groups, to the Faculty Senate vote, and to the many individuals who have attended health care benefits meetings," Glidden said Thursday (5/29/97). "We have heard the concerns about out-of-pocket costs. As the appropriations bill has moved through the General Assembly, higher education has been treated more favorably, to the point that we now can offer our faculty and non-union staff what we consider to be a progressive approach to easing the burden of health care benefits for all employees -- a continuing $25 per month or $300 per annum base benefits increase to offset the cost of the initial annual employee premium for a family-level Preferred Provider Organization (PPO) health care plan."

The benefits increase will coincide with the charging of employee PPO premiums, which starts in January 1998.

Glidden said the university will discuss the same health care plan with AFSCME Local 1699 officials during scheduled talks in July on health care issues. "Our hope is that bargaining-unit employees will convert to the same health care plan as the rest of the university. We believe that we really have a superior health care plan in the PPO, which has modest premiums, no deductibles and is relatively paperless. We encourage all university employees to come to the next health care benefits meeting June 3 to have any of their questions answered."

The $25 per month/$300 annual benefits adjustment will be provided regardless of whether an employee has single or family PPO coverage, or is married to another university employee. It also will be given to employees who choose either of the two other options in the new health plan: catastrophic coverage, which requires no annual employee premium contribution but higher deductible and out-of-pocket charges, or comprehensive coverage, which is similar to existing coverage but requires a higher annual premium and out-of-pocket expense than the PPO. The comprehensive coverage will continue to require deductible payments on a sliding scale, based on annual salary.

"While no action can be taken until after the appropriations bill is signed by the governor," Glidden added, "I also can tell you it is our intention to provide non-union employees a salary compensation pool increased by 4 percent, in addition to the insurance premium offset.

"The national experience with PPOs is that costs rise at a much slower rate than plans structured like the university's current plan," Glidden said. "This restructuring of our health plans enables the university to use its health care expenditures more effectively.

"This Open Choice' PPO will include most of the doctors our employees now use --including all but four of the doctors in Athens County, and two of those are retiring -- and it will give the university more bargaining power when it negotiates health care services with various providers for the majority of its employees."

While there is no single answer to the question of whether a non-network doctor can join the network, Glidden said every employee is encouraged to submit the name of any non-network doctor they would like considered for the network to Joyce Predmore of University Human Resources. Predmore will in turn work with Unicare, the university's health care management firm, to evaluate whether interested doctors can be added to the network within the parameters of the plan design.

The June 3 campus meeting on health care benefits will be held 9-11 a.m. in 235 Morton Hall.