Two employee health benefits vendors pitched plans in a work session Wednesday, with the Pinal County Board of Supervisors meeting afterwards in a close-door executive session for legal advice and discussion of contracts subject to negotiation.
“Providing quality affordable, accessible health care to all of our employees in a cost-effective way is a priority for us here in Pinal County,” Mary Ellen Sheppard, Pinal County director of human resources and interim deputy county manager, told supervisors. “To ensure that that objective is met, especially with the many options available to us at this time, we went through the county’s procurement process and engaged experts in the health care and insurance industries to assist us in conducting an evaluation and to help us to answer the question, ‘Do we have it right or is there something better out there?’ Later this morning you will be briefed in executive session on those results as is consistent with our procurement process.”
To provide supervisors with additional context, representatives from vendors Arizona Metro Trust, which Pinal County now uses, and Kairos Health Arizona, an alternative approach, were invited to the work session, she said.
