FIREFIGHTERS BENEFITS FUND

OPEN ENROLLMENT

For coverage beginning January 1, 2020

MEDICAL, DENTAL CRITICAL ILLNESS & ACCIDENT INSURANCES

WHEN:  NOVEMBER 1, 2019 - NOVEMBER 29, 2019

Once a year the Board of Trustee's set a period of time during which any eligible person may elect to start, end or change coverage and which dependents shall be covered under the plan without the need of a qualifying event. A qualifying event is defined as marriage, divorce, birth, and certain changes to coverage through a spouse's employer or death. Changes to enrollment status in the plan may take place at any time during the year with a qualifying event, but only during Open Enrollment without a qualifying event.

The reason that changes to coverage without a qualifying event are limited to one specific time period per year is to maintain our IRS cafeteria plan status (pre-tax premium status). During Open Enrollment participants of the Fund, or eligible participants, may make changes to enrollment status in either the Medical or Dental Plans or both.

New Firefighter Cancer Benefits

One of the requirements of the new firefighter cancer benefits enacted by the State of Florida earlier this year is that you must be covered by the employer’s health insurance.  Why exactly that is a requirement remains unclear as the benefits have no impact on insurance or provide any actual insurance coverage.  For those of you currently covered under other insurance such as a spouse’s employer’s coverage or through the military consideration should be given to enrolling in the Employee Benefits Fund during open enrollment in November.  For more information and to read the full law please visit our web-site. Read the Bill click here.

NEW BENEFITS FOR 2019!! 

The Palm Beach Firefighters Employee Benefits Fund will be purchasing Accident and Critical Illness Insurance coverage for our members in 2019 with the option to purchase additional coverage for their families. All Active Fire-Rescue Bargining Unit employees and Retiree's (up to age 65) in the Fund will have $5000 coverage for both plans Effective January 1, 2019. 

Accident PlanAs part of the new offering, members will be provided a 24 Hour Accident Plan that covers many of the following benefits and lots more…..                 

• Hospital / ICU Admission Benefits
• Emergency Treatment
• Hospital / ICU Daily Confinement (up to 365 days)
• Fractures     (up to $5,000)
• Dislocations (up to $3,200)
• Ambulance Transportation (Ground/Air)
• Burns/Coma (up to $6,400)
• Lacerations /Lodging
• Paralysis

Benefit payments are paid directly to members to help offset expenses associated with unforeseen accidents throughout the year.  Benefits are portable as well!

Critical Illness Plan

Additionally, the Palm Beach Firefighters Employee Benefits Fund will be purchasing a $5,000 Critical Illness policy that covers the following conditions for all members.  In addition to the conditions listed below, we have negotiated a $50 Wellness Benefit to be included as well.  Remember, all benefit payments are made payable to you. 

Members and their families can purchase an additional $15,000 of benefit with no medical questions/underwriting!

We trust that you will find these added benefits at no cost a valuable addition for 2019.  Remember, this is your opportunity to purchase additional Critical Illness coverage for yourself and family with no medical underwriting. 

A more detailed description of both the Accident and Critical Illness plans are available below describing these very important benefit offerings!  Open Enrollment will be on line for you and your family will be in February, 2019!

Click on benefit below to review details and rates for buy up:

Employee Critical Illness                                       Retiree Critical Illness

Employee Accident                                               Retiree Accident

Voluntary Group Term Life Insurance

  Click here to: Add/change your

Beneficiary for your Life insurance. 

Review current policies. 

New weight loss benefit coming soon: Introducing Real Appeal

We all want to live a healthy life. Though each of us may have different goals, taking simple steps in the right direction leads to positive life changes and helps us to achieve these goals. That’s why in January we will begin offering a convenient online program called Real Appeal^®, available to you and your eligible family members at no additional cost.*

Real Appeal is a fun and engaging plan that helps you learn simple everyday steps you can take to live a healthier lifestyle. When you enroll, you receive:

• A Transformation Coach who leads weekly online group sessions.
• Online tools to help you track your food, activity and weight loss progress.
• A Success Kit with food and weight scales, recipes, workout DVDs and more - shipped to your door.

To enroll visit the web site below:

PBCFirefighters.realappeal.com 

* Real Appeal is available at no additional cost to employees with our UMR medical plan and their covered spouses and dependents age 18 or older, with a BMI of 23 and higher, subject to eligibility. 

Clinic Update

The usage of the Health & Wellness Center continues to grow in popularity.  Visit counts are now averaging just around 96 visits per day, with some weeks averaging over 100 visits per day.  In addition to seeing more patients we are seeing cases with higher acuity, and/or cases where we are doing more in house.  It is not uncommon to have one or more patients receiving IV fluids, with or without antibiotics, at the same time. This means that in addition to seeing more patients on a daily basis our average visit length is longer.

2019 will see a slight increase in staff both on the floor and behind the scenes as we look to keep the patient flow moving along.  One of the detrimental effects to the clinic becoming busier is the effect on wait times.  Without a doubt mornings are by far the busiest time of the day, urgent care visits, physicals and fasting lab draws are all vying for space.  Naturally if you’re miserable we want you to come in, but if your urgent care issue is not emergent and you can wait until the afternoon hours, you might find your visit less hectic and your waits shorter.

One of the ways you can be most helpful is to properly plan and make an appointment for your annual physical.  The more stringent your scheduling requests are the sooner you should work on scheduling your annual physical, for example if you only want to see Brad, or you can only do the morning after your shift then the further out you should be working on making your appointment.  The WORST thing you can do is walk-in during the last week of your birthday month without an appointment.

Another area that has seen tremendous growth for the clinic has been with our pediatric population.  Dr. Desai and now with Dr. Prose’s assistance is seeing an ever growing population of newborns.  We are excited that this portion of our offerings has grown so rapidly, and now with someone here specializing in pediatric services pretty much whenever the clinic is open we expect that growth to continue.

All in all exit surveys completed by patients continue to give the overall operation along with the staff high marks, and for that we thank you.  We will continue to plan for future growth and expansion, whether onsite or with outlying satellite facilities.  And, as always we thank you for your patronage and your patience.

Calling all Newborns………

And all pediatric patients.  We are very excited about our pediatric program established by Dr. Dhrupa Desai; it has been widely accepted and supported by all of our new and experienced parents.  Our program is a first of its kind, of all the concierge practices out there none focus on our younger populations like we do. Personalized care with longer patient/provider interaction time, we will provide personal quality care for your child from the day they are born, starting with the very first visit the day after you leave the hospital. We will provide for all of your child’s well visit needs including tracking growth and all the recommended vaccines right here in the comfort of your own private facility.

If you haven’t tried us for your child’s health care needs please make an appointment with Dr Desai to see what we can do for you and your child. Be sure to bring your child with you as there is nothing more important than both the parents and the children being comfortable with their health care provider.  If you are planning on starting a family or just have a new bundle of joy on the way, again, come meet with Dr. Desai and learn how your little ones can experience the world of concierge health care.