Travis County Commissioners Court
March 28, 2006
Item 12
12 consider and take action on the following fy '06 employees health care coverage issues. A amendment to apo, ppo, cppo plan, regarding acupuncture treatment effective 10-1-2005 and 12 b is to reiterate the extension of flexible spending agreement deadline for reimbursement of health care expenses, two, two and a months after the end of the year. Now the plan year effective plan year 10-1-2005, I thought it would be important for us to discuss this so employees would love what we do. Good morning.
>> good morning.
>> alicia perez, executive manager for administrative operations. We have two items before you. As you stated, judge, the first is to amend the epo, ppo and co ppo in regards to acupuncture treatment. This clarifies the cover treatments for acupuncture. The cover treatments are treatment for pain, treatment for post-operative nausea, treatment of nausea during first trimester of pregnancy, treatment of nausea due to chemotherapy. This reflects uhc policy and/or really the treatments that there has been most documentation and proof that acupuncture really affiliates overall pain and then the nausea for chemotherapy and for during pregnancy.
>> for employees they should know what?
>> they should know when they seek acupuncture treatment, that it is -- the payment or the reimbursement from the health care is only for the treatment of pain, treatment of prose operative nausea, during the first trimester of pregnancy, during chemotherapy, not any other treatments.
>> so our policy has not been as clear historically.
>> that's correct.
>> okay. Now, so if a person wants to get treatment of these four categories, does referral have to be from a -- from a -- from a regular doctor?
>> no. There is no referral needed since we have an open access plan. It would be better if they would use an in network act punckist because they have been certificated as far as their professional qualifications but these are the clinical guidelines given to us by united health care as the most effective methods and uses for acupuncture. We have covered it in the past, but this is just clarifying of the benefit.
>> when the invoice comes from the person that provides the service, we would expect to see one of these treatments.
>> it should be coded for one of these treatments.
>> okay. If there are questions contact one you you all I’m assuming.
>> right.
>> before we move to the second item, I want a clarification, maybe clarification. We cover acupuncture by md. We are suggesting this be opened to a licensed acupuncturist in the state of Texas. That's somewhat of an expansion of the benefit. But we feel that it's a reasonable benefit to offer.
>> it's all covered by md.
>> or licensed acupuncturist.
>> okay. Move approval of a.
>> second. Is that all of a?
>> yes, sir.
>> discussion? Favor favor? That passes by unanimous vote with Commissioner Daugherty temporarily away. B?
>> b is just a reiteration of something the court approved several months ago. We want employees to be mindful of the fact that beginning in this plan year that they have an additional two and a half months to incur expense under their fsa and then three months beyond that to submit their claims. So they have through the middle of December 15th to incur expense against their sfa contributions, we just want employees to be reminded of that, to be aware that they have that extended benefit.
>> so no action to b, just a reminder.
>> yes.
>> [indiscernible] would you? Show me voting -- [indiscernible]
>> > show me voting. Please.
>> okay. Thank you very much.
>> appreciate it.
The Closed Caption log for this Commissioners Court agenda item is provided by Travis County Internet Services. Since this file is derived from the Closed Captions created during live cablecasts, there are occasional spelling and grammatical errors. This Closed Caption log is not an official record the Commissioners Court Meeting and cannot be relied on for official purposes. For official records please contact the County Clerk at (512) 854-4722.
Last Modified:
Wednesday, March 29, 2006 10:48 AM