RBMS: facilitating self-funded health benefit plans: company offers alternative to traditional coverage.

• Author: Sergeant, Deborah Jeanne
• Position: Risk & Benefit Management Services

The typical Alaska employer struggles with insurance benefits. Catch-22: offer benefits and shoulder a great deal of premium expense or shift the expense to employees through premium stipends, a lack of insurance, or limited coverage.

None of these options provides maximum satisfaction to both employers and employees; however, self-funded plans represent a different option gaining in popularity, as demonstrated by the growth of RBMS LLC (Risk & Benefit Management Services), an Anchorage-based firm that (among other services) provides third-party administration of self-funded plans.

Founded in 1992, the company has expanded to become the state's largest, locally owned third-party administrator (TPA) of self-funded insurance plans, serving groups with .50 or more employees. (RBMS also administers self-funded dental and vision plans for groups as small as 20.)

Don't take the term "self-funding" too literally; it doesn't mean that you as an employer manage the claim for everything from a hangnail to heart surgery. Greg Kershaw, president and CEO of RBMS, said that many people mistakenly believe that self-funded plans force employers to do a lot of extra work or undertake a lot of expense for big claims, but they don't.

EMPLOYERS CHOOSE INVOLVEMENT

"The level of day-to-day involvement on behalf of the employer's staff depends upon how involved they want to be," he said. "You don't need a large HR staff to manage a self-funded plan."

Joe Van Treeck, president and CEO of Matanuska Maid Dairy in Anchorage, has found that to be true. With Matanuska's previous traditional plan, "there always tended to be a huge amount of consternation that (employees) had outstanding bills because the insurance company was trying to sort out what was what," he said.

With the self-funded plan, "we hardly have any interaction with employees as far as their claims," Van Treeck added.

Self-funded plans provide a different way of viewing insurance both as it relates to cost-effectiveness and benefiting employees. Self-funded plans divide insurance expenses into two categories: predictable and unpredictable costs. Examples would include routine doctor visits, dental checkups and eye examinations. For most people, it's pretty much guaranteed that they will need these kinds of services year-in and year-out. The self-funded plan can include dental, vision and preventative medicine, too.

Jim Roberts, human resources director at Peak Oilfield Services Co. in Anchorage, said...