{"id":20064,"date":"2019-11-12T13:12:12","date_gmt":"2019-11-12T20:12:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.skyhinews.com\/?p=61438"},"modified":"2019-11-12T13:12:12","modified_gmt":"2019-11-12T20:12:12","slug":"peak-health-alliance-offers-grand-county-a-chance-to-lower-health-care-costs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/local-news\/peak-health-alliance-offers-grand-county-a-chance-to-lower-health-care-costs\/","title":{"rendered":"Peak Health Alliance offers Grand County a chance to lower health care costs"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
Tamara Drangstveit, CEO of Peak Health Alliance, speaks at a September health care event in Keystone.<\/strong>
Summit Daily file photo<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

This year, for a family of four in Grand County, the cheapest health insurance plan available for them to purchase directly, rather than through a job or the government, will cost roughly $1,900 per month.<\/p>\n

Health care premiums have skyrocketed in Colorado, particularly on the Western Slope. As a result, Grand County is looking for solutions by joining the nonprofit Peak Health Alliance.<\/p>\n

\u201c(Health insurance premiums) were causing a crisis and still are causing a crisis,\u201d said Tamara Drangstveit, chief executive officer for Peak Health Alliance. \u201cFamilies are moving and leaving, businesses are closing because they can\u2019t afford health insurance.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2020, employees of Grand County can sign up first plans offered by Peak Health in Grand County. In 2021, all residents will have the option to join individually or on group plans.<\/p>\n

Peak Health Alliance and the Board of Grand County Commissioners hosted three information sessions to share information about the options and answer questions.<\/p>\n

Grand County is the first county to partner with Peak Health Alliance outside Summit County.<\/p>\n

The county joined Peak Health Alliance because the nonprofit has significant negotiating power when it comes to lowering costs and ensuring good coverage thanks to the number of people it serves.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we did with reinsurance in Grand County is going to save about $5 to $6 million for our population in one year,\u201d said Commissioner Rich Cimino. \u201cWhat\u2019s going to happen with Peak Health Alliance on top of reinsurance in 2021, that is going to be a $6 to $8 million savings over what it had been like if those didn\u2019t happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

Over the 10 years she worked for Summit County\u2019s Family and Intercultural Resource Center, Drangstveit said, some families\u2019 premiums have gone from being 10% of their annual expenses to almost 40%.<\/p>\n

However, since Peak Health Alliance established itself in Summit County, the nonprofit has managed to negotiate with Centura the lowest rates in Colorado and premiums have dropped by 20%, according to Drangstveit. <\/p>\n

The idea is to find a way to do the same with Grand County\u2019s premiums and encourage more local residents to carry health insurance. Currently, 19% of the county is uninsured, according to the Grand County Rural Health Network.<\/p>\n

\u201cEssentially, what we do is use data to identify the cost-drivers in a given community,\u201d Drangstveit explained. \u201cIn Grand County, for example, your hospital is eminently affordable. The problem is not as many people use the hospital as should use the hospital, so a lot of the work we\u2019ve done has been about changing plan design to incentivize folks to go to the local hospital.\u201d<\/p>\n

That doesn\u2019t mean Middle Park Health will be the only hospital on the plan. In fact, all Centura hospitals would be included, as well as other options for specialty care, including children\u2019s needs, mental health and dental.<\/p>\n

The plans offered by Peak Health also carve out care, including primary physician visits, that can be accessed without having to pay down a plan\u2019s deductible.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur commitment is to negotiating first with local providers and then wrapping in the other guys when that care can\u2019t be delivered locally,\u201d Drangstveit said. <\/p>\n

Providing complete local care will remain the goal as Peak tries to lower deductibles in the state. To have the negotiating power to lower deductibles, Peak Health needs to impact more lives, Drangstveit said, and so it plans to continue partnering with neighboring counties to help more people.<\/p>\n

Enrollment for the upcoming year is open until Jan. 15, 2020.<\/p>\n

via:: Sky-Hi News<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tamara Drangstveit, CEO of Peak Health Alliance, speaks at a September health care event in Keystone.Summit Daily file photo This year, for a family of four in Grand County, the cheapest health insurance plan available for them to purchase directly, rather than through a job or the government, will cost roughly $1,900 per month. Health […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-20064","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-15 18:11:37","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KRKY Ski Country","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20064","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20064"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20064\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20064"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20064"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20064"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}