BERNE — An insurance plan that covers many of Berne-Knox-Westerlo school district’s retirees is being eliminated.

The New York State Department of Financial Services had allowed Empire Blue Cross Blue Shield to discontinue its Matrix plan.

“The Matrix plan is officially going away,” said Matthew Tedeschi, board of education president, at the Feb. 16 school board meeting.

He added that letters should be sent out by Blue Cross Blue Shield in April, but the district will also look to communicate with retirees about the plan.

A new plan was approved, he said, because it has comparable coverage.

The insurance company is required by law, said BKW Communications Director Bill DeVoe, to provide comparable coverage. What is deemed comparable is determined by that provider, he added.

Empire had notified the state’s Department of Financial Services earlier this year that it was looking to discontinue the plan, according to a spokesperson for the department. The company told the department that a similar plan would be offered.

The department is currently reviewing notices of the discontinuation that would be sent to those using the Matrix plan, its spokesman said.

Speaking with the Enterprise on Feb. 21, Tedeschi said that the plan serves mostly retired school employees as well as a some active employees. The district will switch these individuals to a plan currently offered by BKW, said Tedeschi, which will likely be the Empire PPO plan.

“It’s very early in the process,” he said.

He added that letters with information on the matter would be sent to those affected by early March.

Current rate changes and cost to the school are still being figured out, said, who works in the insurance industry.

PPO stands for Preferred Provider Organization, and refers to a group of doctors or hospitals that provide to one specific group, such as an insurance company or an employer. Patients covered by this policy pay for services as they are rendered and receive services from this network at lower rates. Empire offers several different PPO plans, including one titled Empire PPO.

The school’s staff resources web page includes a summary of employee health coverage dating from the 2013-14 school year. The Empire PPO plan has a zero-dollar deductible for in-network providers and an out-of-pocket limit on expenses; for out-of network providers, the deductible is $200 for individuals and $500 for families, and the out-of-pocket limit is $1,500 for individuals and $3,750 for families. Copayments, deductibles, premiums, balance-billed charges, and health care are not included under the expenses.

The Matrix plan is offered in three subgroups, Subgroup 1 for Civil Service Employees Association members only, and Subgroups Plain and B. Subgroup 1 has a $100 deductible for individuals and a $300 deductible for families; the out-of-pocket limit is $6,250 for each individual. Subgroups Plain and B have a $50 deductible for individuals and a $150 deductible for families; the out-of-pocket limit is also $6,250 per individual. Both plans do not include premiums, deductibles, balance-billed charges (unless balanced billing is prohibited), and health care in the expenses.

Under the PPO plan, co-insurance is 0 percent of in-network costs and 30 percent of out-of-network costs. The Matrix plan’s co-insurance is 20 percent for most in-network and out-of-network costs.

The overviews each provide two examples of how the coverage would take effect: delivering a baby and treating Type 2 diabetes. Under the PPO plan, a $7,340 delivery would be almost completely covered by insurance along with a $100 copay; the total cost of treating diabetes of $2,500 would be covered besides a $120 copay. Under the Matrix Subgroup 1, the total cost of the delivery is covered with no copay, but treating diabetes includes $180 in co-insurance and a $100 deductible. Under Subgroups Plain and B, the delivery is also covered in whole, but the deductible for treating diabetes is $50 and the co-insurance is $190.

Website slowdown

Superintendent Timothy Mundell explained at the Feb. 16 meeting that the new district website, which had had a tentative launch date of April 1, had been delayed for a number of reasons.

Bill DeVoe explained that the transition from the 10-year-old website to the new one has involved taking inventory of years of documents, saying that the old school of thought for websites was to use them as a “dumping ground” for documents, from meeting minutes to school lunch menus.

“Our site has about 10 years worth of pages and documents,” he said.

DeVoe added that the website had to be compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act, and so pages had to be tagged in order to comply with screen-reader devices for those unable to read a webpage.

DeVoe said the current launch date being considered is in early June, which he said would prevent people from using the new website for information on the budget vote in May. He added that the Board of Cooperative Educational Services is giving the school another web specialist to work on it; DeVoe is an employee of BOCES.

Tedeschi told DeVoe at the meeting that he was frustrated with the delay, saying that this switch to a new website had been discussed in July or earlier.

He asked if the website would have to be designed on a Wordpress platform, similar to others designed through BOCES.

“If the other school websites that I’ve looked at are any indication what this new school website will look like, I don’t know why we would even move forward,” said Tedeschi.

DeVoe said that the site wouldn’t be launched until it received full approval from the school board.

“It’s not rocket science — it’s web development,” Tedeschi said at the meeting. “We could probably hire kids here that could make the website faster.”

Mundell also announced that the school would be replacing the School News Notifier system with Blackboard by March 1.