By Rupert Howell
Panola County employees may find themselves paying up to 20 percent of their health insurance cost if they fail to participate in the preventive checkup option.

Supervisors were told Monday that although their insurance cost has gone up 20 percent the last two years, claims for the current year are also increasing which may lead to another increase.
Kirk Scoggins who is account executive with Gathings Insurance Partners that handles Panola County’s 179 employees’ health insurance, told supervisors, “I know you weren’t happy with last year’s increase,” and recommended putting “more teeth” in wellness activities.

“That’s the thing I will be focusing on,” Scoggins told board members.

He mentioned that wellness activities such as free flu shots and wellness checkups were not being taken advantage of by many of the county’s employees stating, “Unless you put teeth into it, there’s not a lot you can do.”

Scoggins explained that the law allows up to 20 percent of health care cost can be charged back to the employee noting, “A lot of businesses, city and county government are going to this.”

Making check ups mandatory and giving employees time off to get the annual wellness checkup was just two of Scoggins’ suggestions and he told board members, “Y’all are providing fabulous benefits offering 100 percent health insurance.”