About ten years ago, the Idaho School Benefit Trust (ISBT) was created to help schools reduce their risk exposure with extremely low administrative costs, no taxes, no profit, no required broker fees, and no insurance company margins. The ISBT was created by experienced school representatives. The creation of the ISBT immediately resulted in significantly reduced annual increases and helped stabilize year-over-year healthcare costs. Healthcare costs have continued to rise dramatically over the past decade however, the ISBT has never had an annual increase above 10%. The ISBT’s average annual increase over the past 9 years has been 5.3%, which is well below medical inflation and below the average market increase. Please see the renewal numbers in the graph below. There is definitely protection in being part of such a large pool governed by a Board of very active Trustees whose sole purpose is to work hard to reduce healthcare costs and burdens for schools. It is difficult to battle healthcare costs associated with medical inflation, pharmaceutical manufacturer pricing, and high healthcare provider bills (e.g. for cancer treatment or premature babies); however, the annual renewal numbers show that the ISBT is successfully battling those forces.
In addition, the ISBT allows schools incredible flexibility in designing their benefit offering each year. For example, schools can select from a wide variety of deductibles, office-visit copays, prescription drug copays, networks, and so forth. The ISBT also offers a number of programs that help employees and their dependents save money. No broker or broker commissions are required. Blue Cross of Idaho is currently the third-party administrator for the ISBT (not the insurance company), which means the ISBT gets to manage its self-funded healthcare program while taking advantage of the broad nationwide network and deep provider discounts of the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association. The Idaho Department of Insurance has oversight authority of the ISBT, so it ensures that the ISBT has adequate funding and reserves.
The ISBT Board of Trustees understands that there are never ending pressures and changes in healthcare coverage, so they are constantly looking for cost-saving opportunities without adversely impacting employees and their families. The ISBT has received recommendations from both the Idaho School District Council and participating school districts. The Board of Trustees hears you and desires to implement recommendations that benefit the whole pool of participating school districts and charter schools. For example, projects are underway to make monthly billing, reconciliation, and payment much clearer and easier.
As school districts, school entities and charter schools constantly wrestle with funding and budgets, the Idaho School Benefit Trust (or ISBT) remains a very competitive option to help schools manage healthcare coverage and associated costs for employees.