The public education health trust

Innovate.

Once we learned of the global pandemic this spring, it is what our teachers, students, and families all did on the fly. I want to compliment all our educators, administrators, support staff, and families for their diligent work to adjust to this unprecedented and difficult situation. Change was forced on us and instead of shrinking, we rose. We reinvented much of how we operate to create some stability for our students and families. There are challenges as we look at the new school year, but we are Alaskans and we are ready to meet them.

Our education system as we know it is changing – as it must. COVID-19 has forced students across the Last Frontier into a new style of learning and families, teachers and our communities into a new manner of teaching.

Although I am now retired, during my career I served as a trustee for the Public Education Health Trust (PEHT). PEHT’s health insurance model has been forced to change over the years as well, and when it comes to innovation, we know a thing or two. It all starts with finding innovative methods to keep health care costs low. PEHT provides local choice and local control while ensuring low cost health insurance options for our members.

PEHT provides insurance to 17,000 of Alaska’s public education employees – both teachers and support staff alike. As a non-profit organization that unites large and small Alaska school districts to combine their purchasing power, we reduce costs and increase the availability of benefits. PEHT is an independent organization whose goal is simple: to maximize member benefits while assuring quality outcomes at the least possible cost. We work to assure public education employees have one less thing to worry about – the cost of their health insurance. As an independent organization, our only affiliations are in the interest of furthering that goal.

Our small organization, staffed by three employees, allows us to spend more than 95 cents of every dollar we take in on covered medical services. Administrative costs are under 5 cents of every dollar spent. Being small and nimble allows PEHT to act quickly and take advantage of opportunities; we can act quickly on a good deal when we see it.

In the past three years PEHT has saved the State of Alaska nearly $156 million dollars in health insurance costs, approximately $52 million per year, through our ability to make quick adaptations and by negotiating lower rates for our plan holders. That money goes back to our 28 member school districts or associations to spend as they see fit. PEHT works to create control over your health care costs.

Because PEHT members, staff, and leadership determine coverage benefits, our insurance providers work in members’ interest to deliver the lowest administrative cost, advocating during appeals of any claim decision and plan provision interpretation. Our trust pool puts assets to work for the sole benefit of plan participants. From the top, we have our members in mind, as PEHT is governed by seven trustees who represent PEHT’s membership.

These days, it’s hard to find health care statistics that show positive trends, but in recent years, roughly half of the time our plan costs have either decreased or seen NO increases. Overall, for five years PEHT’s plan cost has averaged just a 2.7 percent increase.According to Kaiser Family Foundation, the average family premium has increased by 22% since 2014.By comparison, the innovative cost containment measures at PEHT are saving more than $9,000 per plan member per year.

In this unique time where everyone is looking at the latest ways to innovate, PEHT continues its trailblazing approach to give our teachers, their teams and families one less thing to worry about: the cost of health care.

After earning degrees in English and education at UAA and Middlebury College, Prudence McKenney taught English for 17 years in the Mat-Su Valley and was a high school librarian for 10 years. She served on the Board of the Public Education Health Trust for 3 years.