By Matt Flett, Director of Protective Trust Services

 

 

The Protective Trust continues to have a busy spring preparing renewals for health, property/liability, and workers’ compensation for the combination of more than 100 participating school districts.

 

We have exciting news about our health fund: the South Dakota School District Benefits Fund.

 

The fund will be transitioning third-party administration services to Wellmark Blue Cross Blue Shield effective July 1, 2015.

 

Wellmark’s expansive service options, which cover ALL hospitals and nearly all of providers in South Dakota as “in-network” in addition to their national network and partial global network will provide an outstanding experience for our members.

 

With innovative facility and provider reimbursement strategies in place, Wellmark delivers great claim savings to the health fund and our members. They also invest a great amount of resources into information technology, which offers our members plenty of facts and figures about their plan at their fingertips.

 

As we move forward with Wellmark, we want to graciously thank Avera Health Plans for the excellent partnership we shared during the last 11 years.

 

We have a great deal of respect for Avera Health Plans and Avera Health System.  The health system, which comprises of more than 300 locations in 100 communities, including the largest facilities: Avera St. Luke’s in Aberdeen, Avera Queen of Peace in Mitchell, Avera McKennan in Sioux Falls, S.D. and Avera Sacred Heart in Yankton.

 

We are excited our insured members can still utilize Avera facilities and receive the excellent care they get today with the transition to Wellmark.

 

The transition has already begun. It will not be an easy task moving 6,000 people from one administrative services carrier to another, but with everyone’s help and patience we are confident it will be a smooth transition.