This Wednesday, the State Health Benefits Program (SHBP) Plan Design Committee (PDC) held its regularly scheduled October meeting. The PDC passed a resolution, by a vote of 7 in favor, 2 in opposition, and 2 abstentions urging the State Health Benefits Commission (SHBC) to extend open enrollment by one week because tools to help employees understand their cost were not available when open enrollment began. In fact, the Horizon plan calculator was only posted this week, and the Aetna plan calculator and Summary of Benefits are still not posted on the Division website. That resolution will be forwarded to SHBC for their consideration. However, the next regularly scheduled meeting is November 13, after open enrollment is scheduled to close.
In addition, Aetna presented its Transparency Tool Demo to search for doctors, and specialists, negotiated costs for specific procedures, and average costs for procedures. Both Horizon and Aetna provided an update on changes to their behavioral health networks.
Contact: Paul Penna, Senior Legislative Analyst, ppenna@njlm.org, 609-695-3481, x110.