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Many employees attended the July 17 roundtable on the NU Benefits Plan. |
John Russell, assistant vice chancellor at UNMC and executive director of Human Resources, said that he appreciated the candor and input of the roundtable participants, many of whom asked questions and offered comments.
“I thought the questions that were asked were extremely meaningful to many employees,” Russell said. “The questions and comments certainly covered many areas of the Benefits Plan.”
More than 50 UNMC employees attended the July 17 roundtable. Russell said that he would address some of the employees’ concerns when he meets with officials from other NU campuses and central administration. The Benefits Plan is available to some 14,000 NU employees.
Among the topics covered at the roundtable were:
Health insurance
Russell said that health insurance premiums probably would increase at the beginning of 2004. During the first six months of 2003, nine insurance claims of more than $500,000 were filed with the university’s insurance, leading to a significant increase in the amount of insurance claims paid over the same period in 2002.
“The big claims skew the numbers and that makes projections difficult,” Russell said. “If we’re really lucky, the premiums will increase by only 5 percent,” but it certainly is possible that increases will be larger than that. Legislative appropriations for 2003-04 provided for a 5 percent increase in university employer contributions.
Employee tuition remission
Russell said that it’s doubtful that tuition remission for employees and their dependents would be expanded to 18 hours per semester.
“A greater issue is for part-time employees to get tuition remission on a pro-rated basis,” Russell said, adding that he personally approves of such a plan. Russell said that tuition remission wouldn’t be expanded to schools outside of NU. He did say that UNMC has brought to campus some outside training classes and educational offerings that are widely appealing, such as Spanish classes and Business Writing Skills. He expects that practice to continue.
Social Security Numbers
Russell said that UNMC is working toward limiting the use of Social Security numbers as individual identifiers, but that is “a tall order.”
“There are so many data systems that run off of that identifier and that interact with each other, you just can’t say, let’s stop using this number,” Russell said. “It’s a long process, and all of the systems must make that change.” It is expected that Blue Cross/Blue Shield will discontinue its use of that identifier by Jan. 1, 2005.
Equity of cost among all employees
Russell said that the university, in the early 1980s, made a philosophical decision that its employees and their families shouldn’t go uninsured. Hence, University premium contributions were differentiated, much like the State of Nebraska and other employers, to help defray the greater cost of dependent coverage.
When the NU Flex program was initiated shortly thereafter, NU Credits, a flat dollar benefit contribution, were introduced to try to help balance the contribution value between those with dependents and those with individual coverage. The NU Credits haven’t kept pace with premium increases, and there may be some need to address that issue again, Russell said.
The Benefits Plan, overall
During the last thorough review of the Benefits Plan, which took place some time ago, the University of Nebraska graded well in comparison to its peers. Many of the same sort of changes in cost and plan design made in the University plan since that review also have been made in the benefit plans of other employers.
More Roundtables?
The Human Resources department will evaluate the response to this roundtable and, if supported by the response, will schedule additional programs in the future. In the interim, employees can ask questions about the benefits plan or other human resources issues by e-mailing questions or concerns to hr.info@unmc.edu.
“We are committed to enhancing communication within the organization, and we hope these roundtable meetings are a good way to do that,” Russell said.