{"id":20894,"date":"2020-01-09T09:43:09","date_gmt":"2020-01-09T16:43:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.skyhinews.com\/?p=62447"},"modified":"2020-01-09T09:43:09","modified_gmt":"2020-01-09T16:43:09","slug":"county-health-insurance-mix-up-creates-confusion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/local-news\/county-health-insurance-mix-up-creates-confusion\/","title":{"rendered":"County health insurance mix up creates confusion"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

2020 got off to a rocky start for some Grand County employees who experienced issues with their new county health insurance plans, but county commissioners say the mistake should be fixed going forward.<\/p>\n

According to County Commissioner Rich Cimino, employees who had signed up for EPO and PPO plans \u2014 exclusive provider organization and preferred provider organization \u2014 were mistakenly switched.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know Grand County Human Resources got all of the forms from the employees and submitted to HUB (the county\u2019s insurance consultant) accurately but \u2026 we\u2019re still trying to uncover whether the mistake was HUB or UMR (the county\u2019s insurance administrator),\u201d Cimino explained.<\/p>\n

This mix up created confusion for employees who thought they had been signed up for the wrong plans and for providers who were confused about whether they could take the insurance.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had an employee that was in Denver yesterday and their doctor called our health care provider three different times and they said, \u2018You are not covered,\u2019 \u2026 so she had to turn around and come back home completely empty-handed,\u201d said Jeff Bauckman, communications supervisor for the Grand County Sheriff\u2019s Office, at the Jan. 7 commissioners\u2019 meeting.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, the county\u2019s Human Resources Department reached out to the county\u2019s health insurance administrator, UMR, and consultant, HUB, to fix the mistake and get employees on the correct plans.<\/p>\n

The change also will be in effect retroactively, so employees will have coverage from Jan. 1. New insurance cards will be mailed to county employees.<\/p>\n

For employees who have scheduled appointments, the commissioners suggest reaching out to their doctor before the appointment to ensure the doctor\u2019s office has the correct insurance information.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll three of us do apologize for any mistakes. We didn\u2019t anticipate this either,\u201d Commissioner Kris Manguso said at the meeting. \u201cWe can be angry, but we can also try and move forward and get it fixed, and I think that\u2019s the only thing that will benefit everybody.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cimino echoed the sentiment. He was apologetic for the stress and frustration caused by the mistake, but added that the program is new to the county and discussions continue to happen around improving health care options.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of newness here \u2026 but (problems) are inherent anytime you make a change,\u201d he said. \u201cWe are going out of our way to go very slowly. The PPO is still available. All of the benefits are still available.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cimino also said he still feels the change in health care is right for the county.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe actually reduced the premiums from 2019 to 2020,\u201d he said. \u201cI wish Cigna had done their job. There\u2019s just no way we could\u2019ve stayed in that system that never drives down the cost of hospitals and doctors.\u201d<\/p>\n

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

2020 got off to a rocky start for some Grand County employees who experienced issues with their new county health insurance plans, but county commissioners say the mistake should be fixed going forward. According to County Commissioner Rich Cimino, employees who had signed up for EPO and PPO plans \u2014 exclusive provider organization and preferred […]<\/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-20894","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-17 08:22:41","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\/20894","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=20894"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20894\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}