HISD Benefits

HISD is offering all of the same Aetna medical plan options and making higher contributions toward your monthly premium for 2017, but here's what else you should know. Rising health care costs have caught up with us. For many years, HISD has offered medical plan options that have allowed us to keep employee premiums steady. For the 2014 plan year,... we reduced employee contributions by 20% and have kept them there since then. Unfortunately, we must make changes to our 2017 rates and plan benefits to cover our claims. The reason is simple. The money we pay in claims each year exceeds the amount we collect in premiums. HISD will continue to offer the same wide range of medical plan options through Aetna, and we're increasing our contribution toward your premiums. For employee-only coverage, the district's monthly contribution is $382.48, and for employees covering dependents, it's $414.78 per month. In fact, we began making this higher contribution this past July. Here's what's changing: Medical plan changes HISD will not make HealthFund contributions in 2017. If you have money left over in your account from a previous year, you won't lose it. You may continue to use it to pay for eligible medical expenses as long as you're enrolled in an HISD Consumer plan. Medical plan rates are increasing by $4 or less per pay period for employee-only coverage and by less than $30 per pay period for employee and dependent coverage, depending on your plan and tier. The out-of-pocket maximums are going up by $900 for employee-only options and $1,800 for family options. Advance Medical expert opinion service is no longer available. HISD will continue the Viverae wellness program and Member Health Assessment, but will not provide an incentive for participating in 2017. Wellness incentive changes Viverae is introducing a points-based Healthy Challenge program for 2017, along with a new website and mobile app to make it even more worthwhile to join in and get healthy.Read More