MANSFIELD — Richland County spent about $1 million less in medical claims for its employees during the last year, according to Wendy Dillingham of the County Employee Benefits Consortium of Ohio.
Dillingham, who met with commissioners on Tuesday morning to provide a quarterly insurance update, said the county paid out $7.4 million for employee medical claims from October 2018 to September 2019.
That’s about $1 million less than the same period the year prior, she said, including general fund and non-general fund employees.
Richland County is one of 35 counties in CEBCO. The consortium began as a group of six counties in 2004 as Ohio counties struggled with unpredictable rate increases in health insurance. Anthem is the county’s medical care insurance carrier.
Starting in 2020, Anthem Rx also handles the county’s prescription drug plan.
Dillingham said the county was actually billed $14.3 million, but benefited from Anthem discounts, which amounted to 41 percent of the bill.
She said there was an average of 510 county employees insured under the plan during the period, a total of 1,119 people, including spouses and dependents.
In other business Tuesday, commissioners approved a request from Dayspring Assisted Living & Care Facility Director Michelle Swank to convert two part-time kitchen positions into one full-time position.
Swank told commissioner’s the facility has struggled for six months to keep the two part-time positions filled.
Swank also told commissioners Dayspring is looking for funding, perhaps through a grant from the Ohio Bureau of Workers Compensation, to obtain a LUCAS automated chest compression device.
The devices provide resuscitation by allowing for prolonged, consistent chest compression efforts, which could mean the difference between life and death in a cardiac emergency.
The devices are also used by local fire departments, including the City of Mansfield, which purchased six of the devices for EMS units in 2019.
