| OEBB Plan Designs |
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| OEBB Plan Designs to Offer Comparable Choices for Oregon Schools |
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Plan Design Comparisons
At its public meeting on November 8, 2007, the Oregon Educators Benefits Board (OEBB) reviewed final plan design recommendations for many of the benefits mandated by Senate Bill 426. One of the goals of the Board is to provide plan design options for K-12 districts and education service districts (ESDs) that are comparable to the medical, pharmacy, dental and vision plans they have now.
An array of plan designs will be available for medical, pharmacy, vision and dental benefits. While the new OEBB plan designs may not have exactly the same features as each and every existing plan, for every plan offered now there is an OEBB plan that delivers comparable value to participants. The Board’s consultant group collected data from school and education service districts and “valued” each plan design currently offered. The “value” was determined by applying the specific benefit levels for each plan to a set of sample claims. Basically, the same set of sample claims were processed under each of the separate plan designs (both current and OEBB’s proposed new plan designs) to estimate the amount that would be paid under the plan. If the estimated amounts that would be paid under the current and new plans are within 2.5 percent of one another, more or less, the plans were deemed to be of comparable value.
The Board is still considering the number of options each employee group within a district may select for the various types of coverages. In the Board’s initial discussions, they have considered allowing each employee group to select: 1) up to four medical plan options from the nine available; 2) one of the pharmacy coverage options for each of the four medical plans (with some restrictions); 3) up to three dental plan options from the eight available; and 4) one of the three vision plan options. Each employee group would be allowed to add one of the orthodontia options to its dental plan selections or could elect not to offer orthodontia benefits. The Board will be continuing these discussions at its next regularly scheduled Board meeting on November 29, 2007.
Premiums for the plans and carriers providing the coverages won’t be determined until mid- to late-May 2008.
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