Boston University’s faculty and staff health insurance and disability plan will experience changes in January, the school announced Friday. The changes will adhere to recommendations presented by the Employee Benefits Task Force appointed last year by BU president Robert Brown and will reflect the community’s inputs.
The changes include replacing the health maintenance organization health plan with a new Blue Cross Blue Shield preferred provider organization health plan, according to the BU Human Resources website. The new BCBS PPO is expected to have characteristics from the previous existing HMO, combining benefits of a “national network with the option to use physicians and facilities outside the network” with a greater cost, the website stated.
The new health insurance and disability plan will now only include the two of the existing plans — the BCBS PPO and a health savings account.
Executive Director of Employee Benefits Nimet Gundogan said the task force, led by Special Assistant of the Dean and former Dean of the School of Public Health Robert Meenan, conducted a “comprehensive review” of the university’s employee benefits program throughout 2014.
Gundogan said the change would ensure the health benefit’s sustainability, allowing BU to attract and retain “excellent” faculty members and staff.
“Proposed changes to the health plans recommended by the Employee Benefits Task Force were presented to the community during the 2015 spring semester during which over 40 meetings were held attended by approximately 1,000 faculty,” Gundogan said in an email. “Over 300 emails were also received providing feedback on the proposed changes. Faculty and staff expressed concerns regarding the out-of-pocket maximum applicable to the health plans.”
Until the updated health insurance and disability plan goes into effect in early 2016, BU will give resources to inform and accommodate staff and faculty members through the transition, according to the HR website.
Gundogan said that the educational period will include “numerous educational meetings, webinars and various tools and resources prior to the change taking effect in 2016 to assist faculty and staff in deciding what health plan will best suit their needs.”
Associate Provost for Faculty Affairs and member of the task force Julie Sandell said the task force responded to the community insights accordingly.
“The senior leadership modified several recommendations and announced a timetable for their implementation,” Sandell said in an email. “Others are still under consideration for future implementation.”
BU spokesman Colin Riley said that this change addresses the rising cost increase of health care that is happening nationwide.
“[Staff and faculty members] appreciated the tuition remission and they don’t want changes in that. I understand it was a very good experience,” he said. “It’s a national issue that healthcare costs have been rising at a level of great pressure.”
Robert Schoch, a professor in the College of General Studies, said that health insurance should be addressed more than it is.
“You see [the issue of health insurance] with upcoming presidential campaigns, debates, those types of things,” he said. “I don’t feel I’m qualified to talk about the specifics of [health insurance] at BU, but in some sense, one might say that this is a microcosm of what’s happening across the country.”
Christopher Howard, also a professor in CGS, said that he just arrived in Boston from New Zealand two weeks ago and the health insurance system here seems complicated.
“I had heard [BU] wants to make health insurance plan simpler, I’m not fully sure how the insurance system works,” he said. “Coming from a place where you just have health insurance to all this complexity, it feels like … it seems to be getting only more complex.”
