Orange County NC Website
~3 <br />Mr. John M. Link, Jr. - 2 - August 10, 2006 <br />As requested, the following detail discusses the individual items outlined in your letter: <br />Enrollment Kits -The Welcome Kits were labeled as Enrollment Kits and we apologize for the <br />confusion this labeling caused for your employees. As a companion to the kits being mailed directly <br />to employees, the NCACC held 22 separate informational meetings for Orange County employees <br />prior to the mailing. ,During these meetings your employees were informed that they do not have to <br />re-enroll and were provided the opportunity to receive answers to their questions on all aspects of the <br />transition. It is highly likely that, for those employees who did not attend, this would have caused <br />confusion. When we designed the envelopes, the majority of our counties were going through <br />enrollment for 7/1, and it is understandable how this could confuse our off-cycle members. <br />Missing C~ -The NCACC provided each member group a list of every employee and covered <br />dependent that had an ID card printed along with the address that we had in the system. CIGNA <br />assured us that, if a person was present on this list, they were sent an ID card. We sent this list to the <br />HR contact at each Member Group in advance of the ID cards being mailed so that they could review <br />and make note if any employee or dependent was missing. The County was given the option to call <br />the NCACC and have temporary ID cards created and new ID cards prompted. Even if correct on the <br />list, however, we did find that the new ID cards, which were sent in CIGNA labeled envelopes to our <br />members, were often thrown out because employees did not recognize what they were receiving. We <br />looked at the ability to review the list ahead of time as an enhancement because prior to July 2006, <br />the NCACC was not given access by BCBS to a list of IDs nor the ability to print temporary ID <br />cards. <br />Card Confusion -The Pool is evaluating creating custom ID cards for the next fiscal year. CIGNA is <br />also a Pharmacy Benefit Manager (PBM), and we hesitated to include co-pays on the front of the card <br />for fear that the pharmacy would be confused and file the Rx claim with CIGNA instead of Caremarlc. <br />It is incumbent upon the pharmacists to note the Caremark logo on the front and the Caremark contact <br />information on the back of each card. We have found that, once the pharmacist figures this out and <br />successfully gets a Rx claim through to Caremark, the rest of the process has gone smoothly. <br />Likewise, all participating NC pharmacies were sent a faxed copy of the County Health Plan ID card <br />and instructions on how to file claims with our plan. Michael Edmonds stated to Michelle Love that <br />the pharmacy issues were resolved with one phone call-that the issue was really one of confizsion on <br />the part of the pharmacist. Either way, the NCACC is looking to better the customized card for next <br />year as a result of the confusion this year. <br />Customer Service Misinformation -The customer service toll-free lines at CIGNA and Caremark <br />were open on June 1 and June 16"' respectively prior to the transition for employees to call for <br />clarification. Individual plan design information, specific to each employee, was not "live" in either <br />of their systems until ?/1/06, the effective date of the Plan. As a result, in some instances CIGNA did <br />give out general CIGNA plan information during that time and during the first week following the <br />transition, as did Caremark. CIGNA had to get up to speed-that they were only the claims <br />administrator for medical and that Caremark was the handling the pharmacy claims as our new PBM. <br />If the caller is asking CIGNA if/how the drug was covered, they are going to say that CIGNA doesn't <br />cover pharmacy: The omission was that CIGNA should have forwarded the caller to Caremark. If a <br />caller gets the NCACC information line at CIGNA, they are prompted to press " 3" for pharmacy <br />questions and are directed to Caremark. As a new administrator fresh to the program, there is some <br />degree of human error we should expect the first couple weeks of the program. This particular issue <br />