Travis County Commissioners Court
Tuesday, May 11, 2010,
Item 8
>> speaking of hard work 8 is next, discuss and take appropriate action on travis county benefit plan, a revise definitions of dependents, b, documentation required to substantiate dependent coverage, c, use of vendor to conduct audit to determine dependent eligibility and d direct all departments an encourage all elected officials to inform human resources management department of all employee who is do not have county e-mail addresses before august 15th, 2010. And the purpose of d is so we can figure out a way to communicate with the employees other than e-mail, correct.
>> correct.
>> i guess my only question was when i look at the order listed here, that audit is of current employees, current practices, current policies, right?
>> the audit would be for those dependents enrolled after open enrollment this year, the audit will look at the dependents to determine if they are eligible under the definition of eligible employee under our plan. Several months ago the court directed us to revise some of the steps on enrolling dependents and we were prepared to bring that to court when the new act came into play and it has some definitions of dependents, so barbara wilson from the county attorney's office and cindy have worked very hard to bring those together and that's what this document has. I want to emphasize that this is a dependent eligibility audit for health benefits. It has no other purpose.
>> do we envision doing the audit before we don't the definitions and the documentation acquired?
>> no. We would need the definitions adopted so that at open enrollment, employees know who is eligible and who is not.
>> it will also be part of our outreach program, when we go out into the departments, we need to talk to employees about any changed definitions we might have and make sure they understand and also for the audit company to set up to do the audit we need to have these approved and about the audit, what we are planning on do ising is getting out there, talking to the employees and explaining them what the definition of dependents are and it will be defined in the open enrollment screen so there will be no question who is eligible and not. The employee also do open enrollment and pick the appropriate people if their family to be covered knowing they will have to provide documentation to substantiate those dependents. After open enrollment is over then the actual audit will take place so it will be the fy '11 audit that theject will take place but several months that include employee communication, letters going out and letting people know what is going on so they can start taking the steps they can take to get the appropriate documentation, if they don't have a birth certificate or marriage certificate, we want a copy of that and we want people to have plenty of time so they don't find themself in a time crunch at the end.
>> what is the source of definitions?
>> barbara, do you want to answer that?
>> i think that part of it comes from the act, because in the act it requires the children, married and unmarried, up to the age of 26, be covered. That's been put into the definition. Part of it is the work of the task force that was appointed by the court to review the issue of how dependents should be handled and -- so that there was equity and it wasn't just one status, it was how that had a ramification on other statuses out there, because obviously if your spouse's children can be covered, how do you deal with a domestic partner's children being covered, that sort of thing, so all of that was attempted to be addressed in the new definitions.
>> if we move on item 8, on may 25th, is that soon enough? That is two weeks from today.
>> if we work at the pleasure -- we work at the pleasure of the court, so yes, sir f you need to do it.
>> thank you.
>> if you need do it that way, we can do it.
>> so what we want to do is i guess take action on this. Would we cover this during the employee public hearing, also?
>> i would think not so much you would cover that during the public hearing is that it would be covered in the informational sessions because they would be discussing what each of these things meant and how the -- where the changes were and how that could impact people but when employees respond to you about things, i am sure that there is a possibility that these could be raised and it would be for for them to be addressed if they are raised. It's just it really wouldn't be -- i would think the focus would be more on the affect of the previous item than this one because i don't think these changes -- i think the big change here is that in the past, we have not required proof in relation to the status.
>> i understand.
>> but other than that, i don't think there is that big of a change between what we had before and what we have in the future.
>> we are taking action in anticipation of open enrollment for fiscal year 2011.
>> yes,.
>> bebegins on october 1.
>> yes.
>> so if we take action 25th of may that leaves june for those open sessions.
>> right.
>> and the public hearing, and open enrollment starts july 19th.
>> yes.
>> public hearing is june 16th.
>> my point is i need until may 25th.
>> okay.
>> i am not hearing of an emergency that would prevent that.
>> no.
>> we can work with that, judge. One thing i would like to say is this started when we had our discussion on the domestic partner affidavit and we are only going to require domestic partner affidavit the first time that someone comes on the plan. After the audit takes place. So that's a positive change that people will be glad to hear of.
>> and that's --
>> some of this is required by the federal health plan? That's right.
>> other parts are provided by travis county?
>> that's correct.
>> that's correct.
>> it would help for me for somebody to take the a yellow highlighter and highlight one or the other so i would know, hey, this is mandated by the feds, whether we like it or not.
>> the definition of child is mandated coverage. -- the federal mandated coverage. They are specific about the definition of a child. The rest is travis county.
>> we can do the highlight for you.
>> the other thing is, do you want it noted on there when there is a change from previously because much of what you are seeing in these definitions is the same definition we have used for many years?
>> yes, i think that will help us because --
>> okay.
>> i mean, if we -- if we are being questioned on something we have been doing forever, we may as well let employee know, but if it's something now, then we ought to know what is required by the federal government and, therefore, out of our control of whether it's in our discretion. I mean, i am sort of anticipating employees with what questions they may have and us being able to respond appropriately.
>> okay.
>> swell being informed fully, ourselves. This is -- i mean a health plan affects people in different ways and you start talking about spouses and children and documentation, and my question was common-law. I mean, now there is -- you can go to court and get you a document, but if you have been living together to forever and sort of holding out and doing the things that by texas law would make you of common-law marriage, i mean do we look at facts or do we expect you to bring a formal document?
>> a formal document.
>> a formal document.
>> actually.
>> it has to do with same and similar treatment for all those who are eligible to enroll, whether it's employee or dependent.
>> is that our requirement or the feds?
>> that's ours.
>> that's ours.
>> sir, i think it's important to recognize that if you are in a common-law relationship, you have two options, one is you can go and file a document with the clerk. You don't have to go to court to do it. It is called a registration of informal marriage.
>> on page 18.
>> and the down side of doing a registration of informal marriage is that if you change your mind, you've got to get divorced. You can't just sort of move out.
>> sure.
>> but if you choose not to do that, we are still allowing people to cover one other adult who is living in the household with them and so you could cover a person who you believe to be common-law married to but to whom you do not want to make this statement in the registration form and put it on record at the clerk's clerkoffice or with whom, i should say and so you could be covered that way as common-law and still be allowing the person to be covered under our plan.
>> okay.
>> and so it -- we are going at it from two directions and i don't think that anybody will be unable to cover someone. It may change the kind of documentation that they need to give us.
>> and what they are eligible for is a little different between those two scenarios.
>> okay. Employee who is live in these delicate circumstance who is want to quietly get right will be able to go to hmrd and communicate with a certain person, lay out the circumstances, find out what the documentation is, require documentation -- required documentation is and meet that requirement in plenty of time to be covered by october 1?
>> discussion will be very important.
>> yes, they can come and see me or e-mail me and i will be glad to work with them.
>> one thing that they haven't mentioned, which i think you should be very aware of is that sometimes audits are done sort of in the middle of the year, once everybody has made their commitments and it becomes sort of, you did this and weren't eligible and so now you are responsible to pay for all of the costs that have been incurred by this dependent for health care during the year. And basically it becomes a got you type of situation, and the way this is planned, everybody is going to be informed what the definitions are, what kind of documentation they need to produce, and then go through open enrollment and once that is all over and they have had a chance to get everything perfect so nobody needs to be embarrassed or found to be ineligible, that's the point that we see auditing doing, so it's really a question of -- as the phrase was used earlier, taking care of business before open enrollment, because if you do that, then there will be no problem with anybody. Yes.
>> may 25th is -- will be good for me.
>> okay.
>> is that okay with the rest of the court? I will be fully informed by that time. I would think, though, that for the employees who have been county employees and have their dependents covered for many, many years this would be a new documentation requirement.
>> correct.
>> and so they would be surprised?
>> yes.
>> unless we can talk to them about it when we go out on our information sessions. If you want us to do that, we will be more than happy to include that. That was part of what we were going to talk about.
>> and that information documentation is only required the first time the dependent is enrolled. After that, they don't have to produce the document every year.
>> okay. They will be as supportive of this effort as i am, once they are fully informed. Now, on d, though, we need to go ahead and notify the apartments that if they start putting together -- departments that if they start putting together lists of employee who is not have e-mail, it will help us, right?
>> that's correct.
>> so i think it is a good thing for us to go ahead and get that requirement out.
>> okay.
>> now. Don't you? I mean the departments have to do that?
>> we are also working with its is to the departments can work with its as well if they need to to help determine who these people are.
>> move approval of 9d.
>> second.
>> discussion? All those in favor. This passes by unanimous vote. Thank you very much. Good work committee.
>> thank you.
>> and dan and cindy.
>> thank you very much. Great job.
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, May 11, 2010 12:35 PM
