Travis County Commissioners Court
July 14, 2009,
Item 12
>> 12 a consider and take appropriate objection the united health care reclamation unit authorization and 12 b grand authority to sign subsequent medicare debt letters to risk and benefit manager and the benefit administrator.
>> judge, I
>> [indiscernible] because I thought it was some things in there that may need to be disclosed to the employees and retirees of Travis County who use united health care and also medicare.
and -- but at this time I saw an opportunity to maybe get some information out in the form of direction.
but I'm going to let staff go ahead and tell what this actually is and then the reason why I think it ought to be done that way.
but go ahead, staff, if you would --
>> judge, Commissioners, what we're asking for is authorization letter that we can provide to medicare authorizing united health care to represent the county in the reclamation process.
what happens is medicare pays primary when they should have paid secondary and they want their money back and they can be some whew ruth loose getting it.
we've worked with united health care who has a special unit in the reclamation process and what I think Commissioner Davis is looking for is employers they have united health care but also medicare so the providers can correctly bill and not have this reclamation process where they pay primary and they should have paid secondary.
we probably have about five or six, maybe seven of these a year and they can be very time consuming in tracking down the information about what claims should have been paid, when and by whom.
so we work with united health care.
there's not a fee associated with this.
it's included in our administrative fee.
and they do a very good job in manage to go rectify the process of who should have paid first.
>> so I guess my point is that if those particular employees who are eligible and retirees, who are eligible for medicare and also are associated with united health care as a provider, it will be good for them to let their physician or whoever the persons are that they go and require medical service to ask that the united health care claim take place first and, of course, allowing the medicare portion of that to be secondary.
so it's actually just giving the authorization for them to do that.
i have no problem with it, but I think it would be good for to us instruct employees accordingly.
that way it may speed up the process or either avoid this time consuming effort to try to collect especially when you have one that's being looked at as a prime and the other a lot of veterans secondary.
it takes a little effort there.
>> we can take the opportunity of open enrollment to try and educate our employees and retirees about the process of how claims are paid.
>> exactly.
that was my only question on it, judge.
i would like to move approval, but I think that should have been discussed and flushed out because of the time and essence of it coming up with open enrollment.
>> all in favor?
show Commissioners Eckhardt, Gomez, yours truly and a late Commissioner Davis voting in favor.
that passes by unanimous vote.
>> thank you.
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, July 14, 2009 1:31 PM