CHARLESTON, W.Va. — The Kanawha County Commission voted at its meeting Thursday night to raise deductibles for employees visiting the emergency room.
The raise from $50 to $150 will go into effect Jan. 1. Commissioner Dave Hardy said the emergency room had been used excessively by county employees.
“We have had a very large number of our employees go to the emergency room when they should’ve gone to a standalone facility like Med Express,” Hardy said. “As a result, they’ve been disappointed because they’ve gotten a deductible of $50, and the county has had excessive charges on its health insurance.”
Hardy said a low deductible and better service would result from going to a normal doctor.
“If we can encourage our employees to go to a clinic or their primary care doctor, then they’ll get better care and their deductible will be $20 rather than our new deductible of $150,” he explained.
He wasn’t sure why employees had used the emergency room so much, but guessed that many of the visits came during off hours.
“We really don’t have a good explanation as to why we had excessive number of visits to the emergency room,” Hardy said. “I would guess based on knowing people in general, that a lot of times it might have been late in the evening or early in the morning and it was easier to go to the emergency room.”
In 2014, Kanawha County employees made 270 trips to the emergency room, almost 9 percent of which were considered minor or moderate instances.