Miami Employers and Employees Baffled By Healthcare Costs

Miami-Dade county has a problem–no one seems to understand the costs being paid for healthcare.  Not the government, not private business and not the people whose benefits are paid out.

“We really need to understand where the money is being spent in order to be insightful about benefit design changes,” said Duane Fitch, a health-care consultant for Service Employees International Union Local 1991, which represents physicians and nurses at the county-owned Jackson Health System.

But could Fitch get an answer to that question.

Essentially, no.

“Contracts are proprietary,” said Patricia Nelson, regional head of strategic accounts for AvMed Health Plans, the county’s health benefits administrator that negotiated the payment rates for medical services for county employees. She noted that both the insurance company and the health-care providers agree to keep such payment rates confidential.

Fitch and others who asked for the information never got to see precisely how Miami-Dade spends more than $400 million a year to pay health-care claims for nearly 60,000 employees, retirees and dependents in the health plan.