Transcripts For SFGTV Health Service Board 20240713 : vimars

We do have a change in our supervisor. Rafael nadal him and will no longer be part of our board and we will have mr. Dean pressed things preston starting next month in february. We have a quorum. Item number four . Item four is the possible modifications of the meetings set forth below. Regular Meeting Minutes from december 12th, 2019. Are there any corrections to the minutes . I move adoption of the minutes for the december 12th meeting. Second. Any Public Comment on this item . All those in favor of approving the minutes signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed . Its unanimous. Item number five. Number five is the general Public Comment on matters within the boards jurisdiction. Happy new year. Im sure you are tired of hearing from me, but i want to let you know that i genuinely appreciate all of your time. I wanted to say that last month or the month before when you made the recommendations for the memo, i really wanted take to get to hard. I especially thought about what you said, commissioner as the only md on the board, that you felt confident that a memo and not a change in the policy in that implying up a luminary diagnosis would be sufficient. I really thought about that, and that maybe standing operating procedure in the field of medicine in internal medicine or h. I. V. Or in many other fields of medicine, but that was not my experience. I was not given april luminary diagnosis, and none of the people who received denials were given preliminary diagnosis, otherwise they would have been approved. And so what we are expecting is for clinics to do something that may not be Standard Operating Procedure for all clinics, that members are able to find this memo that exists. A memo that is pretty wonky in its rating and doesnt even use the word preliminary diagnosis, which to me, is not someone from the medical field is clear. Expecting members to advocate to their doctors, something that may not be Standard Operating Procedure. I have been told that blue shield has someone specifically assigned to help members navigate when they received denials. I have worked with the person. They are wonderful. However, how are the members supposed to find this person . I have been connected because ive spoken here. Denial letters are form letters. They do not say a specific person to contact. It is like an 800 number. It is reasonable to expect somebody to call concierge on their card. So is it reasonable to expect the hundreds of people that answer these phones for a concierge to know that this one person exists . I think that is disingenuous. If a person is able to find this employee to help navigate, that would be amazing because she is great. However, is it in her Job Description to be proactive and ensure that no one else is being denied . I am tired and wanted to basically give up on this, but i was contacted by someone in Public Safety whose job it is to protect and serve our public and our lives and what this person told me was identifies the Lgbtq Community and was worried about getting denials. This is not what this body or this board wants. The department mentioned both here and that the budget and finance meeting with the board of supervisors last year is there looking into specifically those agencies that cover fertility benefits. I havent heard any updates. I dont know if you have received any updates. I know the budget is due to the Mayors Office next month and im curious if there are any recommendations being made for the turning over of the budget when it is given to the Mayors Office. Thank you. Thank you. Any other Public Comment . Good afternoon, commissioners and happy new year. I was here last month and i talked about whatever i said about [indiscernible] i cant understand them. Apparently they cant, in the computer system, cant tell who is in the smile program. All i know is they havent fixed my wifes bill since the last meeting. The rep has been nice, but she didnt even know we were in the smile program until i told her and then she found it out. I dont know what is going on there. I wanted to come and talk about kaiser, you know, last month i was here. Somebody called me, but nobody ever got back to me about the issues i raised. But i want to talk about an incident that happened maybe two weeks ago. I was near kaiser at the San Francisco facility and i still hadnt heard about the shingles shot, so i decided to go to the Injection Centre on the sixth floor. I couldnt believe what the nurse manager told me and why there is a shortage. I understand there is a national shortage. They came out with a new shot. That i understand, but what i dont understand, what blew my mind is what kaiser does with the shots. Apparently they distribute them to each facility on an even basis and dont, you know, distributes them proportionately to the members. So my friends who go to kaiser outside of the safety got theirs right away. People in the city, which i assume are a lot of retirees have to wait. I waited over a year. And then she told me they have lists, but they dont have a consolidated list. I asked her where i am on the list, which is a valid question and they didnt know because she says we have multiple lists and we need to consolidate them. That really just blew my mind. So she took my information. So i left and a few minute later she said, richard, are you near to the medical centre and i said , yeah. Long story short, i got the last shingles shot a current apparently in the building. My wife still needs one, but this is just really outrageous. We are one of kaisers biggest customers. And i think when we start negotiating next year, you know, we need to get them on the ball. The doc the doctors are great the medical staff i have no problems, but their bureaucracy i think we need to put some pedal to the metal and get them to change this bureaucracy there thank you. Thank you. Any other Public Comment . All right. Item number six. Item six is the president s report. This is given by president breslin. I have nothing to report at this time except happy new year to everyone. Is there any Public Comment on this item . [laughter] we will move on to item number seven. Item seven is the directors report. This is given by the executive director. Good afternoon, commissioners the directors report is brief this week, or this month, but to make it clear to everyone, we do have a seat open on the board that is currently filled. We he will be stepping down when his term expires in may. We will be conducting an election and those official election practices begin in january, january 10th, to be exact, where we will be distributing the nomination forms and looking forward to having eligible candidate step forward for this role. The nominations will be accepted through february 14th and then the election process will ensue, assuming that we have more than one qualified candidate. Were looking forward to that. The second highlight in the directors report is the centre antitrust case. There was a settlement that was announced on that in december. Much of that is still being discerned and considered and will be made public in february. There is both a financial compensation award that will go to eligible employers, unions, and public entities covered under the class action and legal fees, and importantly there also a number of practices that centre had had in place that will be changing. Those are highlighted in your directors report. And as we learn more specifically about how h. S. S. Will be impacted by this decision, we will bring that information to the board. There is a lot of discernment underway as we speak. We look forward to having a clear understanding of the impact in we will notice the board in due time. Also out of washington there was some good news regarding healthcare taxes in that the cadillac tax, which had never been actually implemented, has now been completely appealed. There it has also been a repeal on two other taxes, one on the medical devices, and that one we solved indirectly through our providers. And then the Health Insurance tax, which has been the subject of much discussion at the Health Service board. So we look forward to having that eliminated in the next round of the negotiations because it is effective 2021. It does not affect rates go into effect in 2020. But it will impact next years. So theres more detail on that in the directors report. The other healthcare tax that was extended is the quarry, which is the Patient Centre Outcome Research institute. It is much smaller in dollars. That will continue. That is the only tax that came out of the a. C. A. That will continue. The others have been illuminated operationally, i think everyone is recovering from open enrolment. It went really well. Mitchell will shortly tell you about some of the evaluation mechanisms we were able to put in place this year to help us improve. We are looking forward to getting a new telephone system installed. February is the target at this point. It will be a pretty nice and good change for us because we have been concerned that our current telephone system is pretty old and we have been worried about system failure, but we are just around the corner of getting this new system installed. Hopefully february unless something delays us from moving forward. The equipment has all been purchased. We are moving along at a good clip. That will afford us a lot of opportunities for automating a lot of services over the phone that we dont currently have that opportunity for. First thing is first, will get the hardware installed and learn how to use it and navigate a new phone system and then we will see how it can enhance Member Services. I just want to follow up on the r. F. P. For First Responders. Did you find any more out on that as far as im scheduled to meet with them this month. I have actually spent some time trying to identify best practices around the bay area people and how they have worked with Employee Assistance programs and where people are at we are taking a look at what that might be and then we will be meeting with the First Responders this month. So this r. F. P. , though, is outside it has nothing to do with e. A. P. . Not directly. It is an Employee Assistance program. Police has had it in place for some time in fire want to do something. They want to seduce do it in partnership with all the Public Safety agencies. Would this be and the Union Negotiation issue . I suppose it could be. I dont know that it has been in the past, but, you know, that would serve outside my purview, but i think understanding how we assess what the needs are and where and how we implemented those and how they marry up to our benefits are very important questions that we continue to look at. I havent met with them yet. It is early january. I intend on doing that this month. Okay. Thank you anything else on the directors report . No. That concluded my report. Questions . Any Public Comment on this item . Good afternoon and tapping new year, everybody. I am an active and retired firefighter. The start of this r. F. P. Came out of contract negotiations that it would be explored. It was in the last contact and they are now getting around to it. One of the things in talking to the president of our union, all the stresses all the stress is a cumulative. It continues on and on even after you retire. So as part of this r. F. P. , i hope they are exploring at least the same as we can claim other injuries from the job after we retire, it goes five years. That would be a nice number to start with to treat these people as part of this r. F. P. Thank you. I definitely think this is true, especially with the First Responders group. Many retire early, not because they want to, sometimes because they have to. So the challenges of the job or injuries or something. That makes it worse too because they are retiring when they would like to still be working. I think there is a lot of real issues about the retiree group. Thank you for bringing that up. Any other Public Comment on this item . All right. Item number eight, please. Item eight is a San Francisco Health Services post open enrolment 2019 survey report out this will be given by the chief operating officer. Good afternoon. I believe i mentioned last month in our open enrolment presentation that this year we did something new under abbeys direction. We developed and gave out some surveys. Not only to membership members receiving these benefits or that are active and open enrolment, but also staff and their preparedness. The first survey that i do want to talk about on page one of your presentation, is a survey we presented to our employees and staff. The Member Services staff are the employees that have the facetoface contact with the members on the phone, interaction with members, processing open enrolment applications and perfecting those enrolments. Basically Customer Service as well. This survey was designed to followup on the 29 Employee Engagement survey. That is employment, the Employee Survey that we did in earlier 2019. And the two surveys were to measure the readiness, specific to open enrolment and to inform us on what we can improve and what we can start doing now to improve processes and any other things about open enrolment. The first survey was given pre open enrolment right before open enrolment to see how they felt prepared as they were getting ready to start open enrolment, and the second survey was done post open enrolment after october 31st. All in all, there were 25 responses. Probably 20 of the 25 employees actually responded, but a total of 25 for those surveys. In the preopen enrolment survey, it gave the staff access to knowledge and resources and how supported and heard they felt within their departments. And what our opportunities they had to collaborate with other agents divisions. The post open roman survey consisted mainly of open ended questions. It means they could type in their responses and not select from prepared responses. Basically these questions were learning what additional knowledge and tools to they feel were needed for the future and what types of team support they received during open enrolment. In addition, what questions were asked most frequently during open enrolment as they were interacting with the membership. In general, looking at both surveys, we determined that stuff really did agree that overall they had knowledge. The knowledge they needed and resources they needed in general for open enrolment and were confident in their own ability to successfully engage members. Staff did express a desire for more collaboration. For more collaboration opportunities with other divisions and more training on selfservice and benefits and peoplesoft components. Both of these surveys, something we heard a lot about was selfservice. It was very exciting for the membership, exciting for our employees to work with, and there was a lot of positive feedback. A lot of recommendations on what to do. It is new and its always good to hear from other people. I didnt include the survey itself in the presentation because its a small crew and a small response, and to keep it, to keep the anonymity of the survey, i didnt put it with the presentation, but i will make a few more comments that are not on the presentation. Some of the questions that were asked, for instance, specific questions that were asked, asking if they felt supported in discussing both positive and challenging professional experiences openly and honestly within the department. Most people agreed, they agreed on that particular question. Another question that was asked was the hard work that they do and preparing for open enrolment is valued. That motivates them to do their job to the best of their abilities. So there is strong agreement with that question. One of the more Fun Questions was how do you prepare for open enrolment mentally and physically . This was an openended question. A couple of my favourite responses were, i sleep more the night before and another response was they prepare by conserving their energy and prioritizing. That was the preopen enrolment survey. The post survey, some of the questions that were asked were open ended questions. What type of support did you receive from your team and from experts of your department during the period . A lot of them felt they were very they worked very cohesively and it was a team effort. Our Business Analyst who filled in before natalie came as board secretary was mentioned in several of these responses about how helpful he was in helping the benefits analysts was selfservice and explaining selfservice or providing support for selfservice. That was really good to hear. What is the most common concern or question that members ask . We knew what this was, but its always good to have it documented. The number one question is, if im not making any changes, doing need to do anything . Just a few examples of questions before i go on to the member survey, do you have any questions about the Employee Survey . And ass a couple questions . Thank you very much. This is really encouraging and i particularly like the response of those surveyed that they were interested in selfservice. I saw that is something that i think is a big benefit for our members and for the staff in terms of their efficiency and use of time. But to be sure i am clear, how many employees were eligible to fill out both surveys . So i got the impression there was maybe 25 and so the total of 25 responses meant that the number of responses could have been 50, so i guess the question is, what exactly are the numbers , into the people who do you have a sense of people who fill out the prealso pull out the pope fill out the poster was as thi