Joint Health Care Committee serves state employees

The Joint Health Care Committee (JHCC) is a labor management committee responsible for monitoring all health care benefits—except vision, dental and life.

Pursuant to Article 20.02 of the contract between the State and OCSEA, the joint committee's labor representation includes five OCSEA members and additional representatives from other state employee unions.

The JHCC has three subcommittees:

• planning
• administration
• communications

Planning

Based on the quality guidelines contained in the OCSEA contract, the Joint Health Care Committee (JHCC) planning subcommittee recommends which HMOs will be offered to state employees.

hmo selection For example, a key requirement HMOs must meet to offer services to State of Ohio employees is to have at least one primary care physician and one OB/GYN in that county (unless there are none practicing in that county).

Additional HMO requirements include:

• premium rates
• access to doctors based on driving distance and
• what percentage of doctors are accepting new patients.

claims administration The planning subcommittee also decides which insurance company administers claims for those enrolled in the Ohio Med plans. The Ohio Med PPO and traditional plans are self-funded insurance plans, but are administered by an outside insurance company. Currently Medical Mutual of Ohio is the third party administrator (TPA) of the Ohio Med plans.

Striving to offer high quality and affordable benefits, subcommittee members continuously explore all new benefits, review disease management programs, and monitor current health care trends to see what might work for OCSEA members.

[ top ]

Administration

The Joint Health Care Committee's (JHCC) administration subcommittee monitors activities in all plans looking for compliance with:

• contract requirements
• customer service and
• quality issues.

contract For example, the administration subcommittee meets with plan representatives to review how well doctors in the plans are prescribing important wellness tests like mammography exams or eye exams for diabetics.

quality Plans who have low quality measures are asked for an improvement plan.

customers Administration committee representatives evaluate customer service statistics, including how long claim resolution takes for the HMOs and Ohio Med. The committee also oversees the status of the employees health care fund balance, out of which claims for the Ohio Med PPO are paid.

[ top ]

Communications

The Joint Health Care Committee's (JHCC) communications subcommittee develops all communication materials for state employees on health care issues.

Useful Some examples are the comparison chart distributed to all state employees during open enrollment; Pathways newsletters and the state’s benefits web site.

NewIn the past few years, communications subcommittee representatives worked to redesign the look of the communications material and to implement an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system that allows people to make health care selections over the phone.

[ top ]