Episode Transcript
[00:00:11] Speaker A: Welcome to on the Fringe, the podcast where we explore the systems, technology and people shaping the future of our work. I'm Ann Larson, CEO of Corellian Software and EPR Live. In this episode, I'm joined by Kevin Cope, Administrator of the NECA IBEW Health and Welfare Trust Fund and Pension Trust Fund based in Decatur, Illinois. From navigating massive health care systems to billion dollar pension assets, Kevin shares what it really means to manage benefits at scale.
We talk about the complexities of health and welfare administration, how pension benefits are impacted by divorce, and why strong communication is key to serving members. Well, whether you're deep in the benefits world or just curious about what it takes to run a multi union trust fund, this episode offers a thoughtful look at leadership, responsibility and what it means to do the right thing, even when it's hard. So let's dive in.
[00:01:09] Speaker B: How do you introduce yourself to people?
[00:01:11] Speaker C: Hi, I'm Kevin.
[00:01:12] Speaker B: Just Kevin.
[00:01:13] Speaker C: Yeah, my name, my name is Kevin Copan. I'm the administrator of the NIC IBW Health and Welfare Trust Fund and the NECA IBW Pension Trust Fund and the IBW NECA Conduit 401k Plan. We're based in Decatur, Illinois.
[00:01:29] Speaker B: Nice. I love it.
That was great.
You said something about the health and welfare plan having the bigger footprint both in terms of number of participants but also in like the work that's involved. So like where is. When we think about health and welfare and pension, they're the two biggest funds in every cba, every agreement we build in EPR Live.
What is the difference between the two in your office or like what, what, what are the, some of the problems that come up with each of those individually?
[00:02:02] Speaker C: Yeah, well, ideally with pension it's all good. Members are getting benefits, they're getting their monthly checks essentially they're, they're direct deposit payments.
Employers are bringing in contributions, reporting on time. The pension fund is roughly a billion and a half dollars in assets. We pay out about $8 million a month.
Now there become issues, you know, obviously as with any employee benefit plan on the pension side, you know, quadros are one of the biggest things, you know, where divorce cases unfortunately happen, where issues kind of, kind of come up with, you know, delays and benefits because legal processes have to go back and forth.
[00:02:43] Speaker D: It's called a qualified domestic relations order.
[00:02:46] Speaker C: The short term is quadro where folks get divorced the spouse of like our participant for. So for example our pension fund participant, they become entitled through the length of their marriage become entitled to a portion of our member participants pension benefits.
So that Ex spouse is entitled to start collecting benefits as early as the member could have, which in our pension plan is generally age 55.
[00:03:21] Speaker B: Do you have any advice for people going through a divorce who are part of the pension plan or what are the mistakes people make?
[00:03:29] Speaker C: This is not advice, but divorces have consequences. One of the biggest problems with pension fund is that there's been a divorce and you know, let's just say 20 years later the participant wants to retire.
[00:03:44] Speaker D: Well, then there's processes.
[00:03:46] Speaker C: Actuarial calculations need to be done to be sure. And that takes time whenever the members retire because of that administrative lag, because calculations need done and they're very intensive calculations that need to be performed by actuaries. It can delay pension benefits by, you know, sometimes as much as we've seen, like three months. And oftentimes that's upsetting because the members maybe retired, fully retired, stopped working now, you know, they don't have an income stream.
So, you know, I mean, we kind.
[00:04:20] Speaker D: Of gently remind members from time to.
[00:04:22] Speaker C: Time that divorces have consequences. This is, you know, these are planned rules. We have to just make absolute certain that we're paying benefits correctly. The last thing we want to do is have to try to claw back dollars from either party to forward onto the other party.
[00:04:41] Speaker D: But really, I think as far as.
[00:04:43] Speaker C: Advice, I mean, besides that, just little quip, we have our plan. And I think most plants around the country pension plans have a model quadro. We put ours on our website, nika-ibw.org for the world to see and use. If divorcing couples use our model quadro at the time they get divorced, that can avoid heartburn and delays when they become entitled to benefits.
[00:05:16] Speaker B: Oh, that's great advice.
Use what's on the website. Use the tool.
Yeah, that's the main pain point of the pension.
[00:05:25] Speaker C: So us administratively, our officer indicator, we have roughly 40 employees, I think. You know, I mean, we really have one dedicated person who is dedicated to pension benefits side, generally speaking. Now, it varies across categories, but about 87ish percent of our operations are solely dedicated to the Health and Welfare Administration.
[00:05:51] Speaker D: Roughly 12% the pension fund, and about.
[00:05:54] Speaker C: One or one and a half percent to the 401k plan. We have to actually produce these allocations of our time so we can divide costs equally, administrative costs equally across the plans. That's a Department of labor rule. You know, the idea is to try to keep it balanced, you know, and it gets out of balance sometimes and our trustees have to either increase contribution rates, which is premiums, essentially, like Healthcare premiums potentially make. Although we don't. We try this to do this as a last resort, reduce benefits. So things like increasing deductibles, increasing out of pocket maximums, increasing member co insurance, you know, things like that. But you know we try to keep it, try to keep it in balance. It's been, you know, in the post Covid environment we've been in here over the past five years or so, four years, it's been a little rough, you know, with experience, so that our trustees have had to increase our hourly and we usually express our premiums as contribution rates on an hourly basis per hour.
[00:07:04] Speaker B: So you did mention to me one time that you have I think 28 bosses, right? You were talking about your trustees.
[00:07:12] Speaker C: Yeah, our board. I'd say there's probably not a lot like it. Our health and pension plan boards, at least within the IBW range were a big outlier. Our health and welfare fund has 19 locals that participate. So being a multi local fund and our trustees just over the years, by the way, the health and welfare fund.
[00:07:35] Speaker D: Was incepted in 1955 which was a.
[00:07:39] Speaker C: Few years, I think seven, eight years after the Taft Hartley Act.
Most folks are familiar with that term labor management related type act from the late 40s which allowed the parties, the IBEW NECA to form these plans. But yeah, so back to our board. So each local is afforded and this is just something our trustees have done over the years. Two trustees, one union side or labor.
[00:08:05] Speaker D: Trustee, one employer side or management trustee.
[00:08:10] Speaker C: So if you multiply our 19 locals by two trustees, we have 38 trustees.
[00:08:15] Speaker B: It's more than I thought.
I thought 28 was a lot.
[00:08:18] Speaker C: I have 38 bosses.
More directly, that board of 38 elects.
[00:08:25] Speaker D: A subcommittee of six who I directly report to.
[00:08:29] Speaker C: Six of our trustees are, they're called our board of directors oversee the corporation.
[00:08:34] Speaker D: They are my direct bosses.
[00:08:37] Speaker C: They do three year terms but it's, it's unlimited basically on how long they can serve. We've had a couple of guys, I'd say they were probably a director for.
[00:08:46] Speaker D: 30 years, a trustee for well over 40.
[00:08:49] Speaker B: Wow.
So you yourself came out of the IBEW world.
As I read online.
Tell me about your path.
[00:08:59] Speaker A: How did you get to where you are?
[00:09:01] Speaker C: Where did you read that? On LinkedIn?
[00:09:03] Speaker B: It was some. I, it might have been through the. If I found a whole bio that said you are 25 year members of IBEW Local 855 in Muncie, Indiana, home.
[00:09:14] Speaker C: Of Garfield the Cat. I love Garfield, John Arbuckle and Odie and home of what Ball Mason jars.
[00:09:21] Speaker B: Everybody loves a mason jar.
[00:09:24] Speaker D: Close Encounters of the Third Kind was.
[00:09:26] Speaker C: Based in Muncie, Indiana.
[00:09:28] Speaker D: Yeah, I joined the apprenticeship.
[00:09:30] Speaker C: I worked as a, a helper for some electrical contractors right out of College in the mid 90s, mid to late 90s. Joined the apprenticeship in 1999 in Muncie, Indiana. Served a five year apprenticeship, became a journeyman electrician a few years later, got involved in local union politics.
And because like I explained, business managers are trustees on the benefit plans.
I eventually became business manager. My, my small local over in eastern Indiana near the Muncie area, kind of right along the Ohio state line.
I became a trustee on the health plan, pension plan, a type of 401a plan or profit sharing plan as well.
And I really, at that point I served as business manager and trustee on the plans for six years. I really, throughout that time became super interested in the benefits side of things. I just really gravitated toward that. Wanted to really learn and soak up more about the ins and outs of, you know, all the rules, plan documents, Department of Labor rules, ERISA study on the Taft Hartley act, things like that.
And then I guess luck and just fortune, timing, whatever you want to call it.
[00:10:45] Speaker D: Two of my predecessors ago, Steve Myers was retiring.
[00:10:49] Speaker C: He was the administrator at the time.
I think we incepted the EPR live system with Concero at that time. I think, I think that might have been back in 11. So that would have been under Steve's predecessor.
When Steve retired in 2016, his assistant was slated to move into the administrator role.
[00:11:12] Speaker D: A position became open.
[00:11:14] Speaker C: Our organization typically kind of hired from within.
[00:11:17] Speaker D: Not, not always, but just as a.
[00:11:18] Speaker C: Rule of thumb, we've hired from within our board. So for the leadership positions that I guess I hate to use this word, but kind of like the top leadership positions.
My position as the assistant administrator and.
[00:11:32] Speaker D: Claims and customer service supervisor came up.
[00:11:36] Speaker C: I was fortunate enough to, you know, I expressed interest, applied started here in the middle of 2016, overseeing about roughly half of our staff, about 20 people in customer service or claims who are working, you know, essentially for the health plan.
[00:11:53] Speaker D: Right.
[00:11:54] Speaker C: Every day in 2018. I mean, I had come in obviously with the intention of, you know, a succession plan, right, which I had anticipated would be a little bit longer of.
[00:12:07] Speaker D: A horizon than what it actually ended up being.
[00:12:09] Speaker C: So I was here actually, it was a little less than two years.
My predecessor left and the board of.
[00:12:15] Speaker D: Directors came to me and said, hey.
[00:12:17] Speaker C: Do you, do you think you're ready? Kind of thing. I Said, well, I think I'm probably as ready as I can be and you know, might save us time and money and heartburn along the way, you know, if, if you guys are ready for me. So, yeah, I was fortunate enough, I mean, just really, really grateful for all my bosses, past and present, for giving me that opportunity. I've been in the admin role now, right at seven years and still have a few years left before I retire.
[00:12:45] Speaker A: You got a while?
[00:12:46] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:12:47] Speaker B: That's awesome. I love it when you're just like, right place, right time. You seem very happy in the role.
[00:12:52] Speaker C: Yeah, I am, I am. It's, it's an enjoyable, a really enjoyable job. I mean you get a, a lot of satisfaction. It's very rewarding, you know, being able to solve member problems, solve employer problems as well and provide solutions to folks who, who need assistance. Because I mean, as we all know, navigating the health, health care, health insurance, you know, that, that whole arena, I mean I, we joke you about a person about needs a team of rocket scientists to navigate through all the crud that falls under health insurance.
[00:13:29] Speaker B: Yeah, 100% agree.
Do you know what the most common problem is for an employer versus an employee?
[00:13:38] Speaker C: Remember, most employers don't experience any issues whatsoever.
[00:13:44] Speaker D: As long as employers are complying with.
[00:13:46] Speaker C: Their requirements in their cba, there's usually no issue where issues come up. Generally is where payment, contribution. If they start being paid late, employers get into delinquent situations which can adversely impact them financially because we do assess penalties and interest to employers who remit late to their contributions laid to the funds.
So, you know, that can definitely be.
[00:14:12] Speaker D: A pain point where employers can kind.
[00:14:14] Speaker C: Of get in trouble, but it's rare. For example, the welfare fund has about 900 employers right now across the welfare fund, about 12,000 active employees now or health plan with all dependents and all retirees and you know, their families, their spouses and families.
[00:14:37] Speaker B: What's the most frequently asked question or issue that a member experiences? I'm guessing it's a loss of coverage. Would be the most dramatic one, the one that you have to, you have to kind of act on right away. But are there other things that people like on the day to day level? All this staff. So the majority of your staff is working on health and welfare, Is it determining eligibility, doing claims, answering member questions? What do they do?
[00:15:01] Speaker D: Yeah, mainly answering member questions.
[00:15:04] Speaker C: We take about 400 calls a day into our customer service department. That doesn't include like other sub departments like you know, pension, retiree disability contributions, our contributions Department where the, you know, obviously the employer remittances come to first.
[00:15:20] Speaker D: They, they apply eligibility in that, in that department.
[00:15:25] Speaker C: But then the member who might lose eligibility, you know, not have eligibility.
Oftentimes their calls are coming into our general customer service department and you know, those questions are like, you know, hey, I'm not, or hey, I called the doctor, hey, I'm not eligible.
[00:15:42] Speaker D: Maybe the employer's paid late or they've worked outside of our locals.
[00:15:46] Speaker C: Going back to the reciprocity issue and there are longer lags, there's longer time frames that the outside plans have to.
[00:15:54] Speaker D: Get those contributions back to our office.
[00:15:57] Speaker C: The biggest, most frequent questions are generally around eligibility.
[00:16:01] Speaker D: And then we also have kind of.
[00:16:03] Speaker C: Some special like spousal working spouse rule. I don't know if you've heard any of those kind of rules where if our spouse is offered insurance through her or his employer plan, then they have to take it in order to be.
[00:16:20] Speaker D: Covered under our plan.
[00:16:20] Speaker C: They have to take a minimal level of coverage through their employer. So that's a way to the trustees, it's a rule the trustees put in place just to kind of, to help balance those costs. Like medical necessity questions.
[00:16:33] Speaker D: Right.
[00:16:34] Speaker C: So hey, I'm going to get an mri. Do I need a prior authorization for that or a pre serve? For us the answer is no, as long as your doctor orders it.
But you know, obviously in the construction field, which is where, you know, 95 plus percent of our members are, is working directly in construction every day, you know, you get musculoskeletal problems, right?
Knees, hips, backs, necks, feet, shoulders, I get those.
[00:17:07] Speaker B: And I don't even work in construction, so I can't imagine.
[00:17:11] Speaker C: So you know, a lot of questions coming in, folks experiencing pain, physical therapy.
[00:17:18] Speaker D: Surgeries being proposed by doctors.
[00:17:20] Speaker C: We use outside medical management vendors to.
[00:17:25] Speaker D: Conduct and perform reviews for us.
[00:17:28] Speaker C: But you know, those are where the questions get frequent. But I think the level of depth, right, because sometimes doctors propose surgery as like a first resort instead of last resort. So you know, we do get into some issues with unscrupulous providers every so often.
You like to believe that every physician is fully up to speed on current.
[00:17:52] Speaker D: Standards of care, but they're not.
[00:17:55] Speaker C: They propose things outside the scope of.
[00:17:58] Speaker D: Nationally accepted standards of care.
[00:18:00] Speaker C: So that's where we get into, you know, our office has to get into conversations with members, providers, offices and our medical management vendor and kind of do that tri party coordination.
[00:18:12] Speaker B: How do you manage to not be the bad guy in that situation? What you're saying is we all know from experience, I certainly know from mine that, yeah, like, doctors have very different opinions. Even like, even like going to get my kid braces. Every orthodontist had a different opinion when making those decisions.
And saying, this isn't the right decision for you as the member, but the doctor is saying it is. How do you manage that without just seeming like, I don't know.
[00:18:42] Speaker C: Well, we are. And that's just as much as I hate to say it, we do become the bad guy, the member.
[00:18:47] Speaker D: Their first response is, in a lot.
[00:18:50] Speaker C: Of times these situations, they're, they're highly emotional. I mentioned the musculoskeletal things. But other conditions, especially cancers, the triggers become hypersensitive at that point.
Members, their first inclination is to say, who are you? Who are you to say, I shouldn't.
[00:19:08] Speaker D: Have this surgery or treatment? Do you think you know better than my doctor?
[00:19:12] Speaker C: Those are the comments we get.
Who are you to say, I can't have this? We hear that. We just try to name it, tame it and reframe it, I guess. And you know, it's kind of the catchphrase we use, right?
[00:19:25] Speaker B: Tell me more about that. So name it, tame it, reframe it.
[00:19:29] Speaker D: Oh, the name it is.
[00:19:30] Speaker C: I, I understand you're upset, right? I mean it's, it's naming it and I understand why you're upset. Taming it is.
[00:19:37] Speaker D: Don't rise to their level, right?
[00:19:39] Speaker C: If, if they're escalating, we don't have to escalate. A lot of times there's education needed. Many times there's just additional information needed.
[00:19:50] Speaker D: Or one more step that needs to.
[00:19:51] Speaker C: Be done to, to hit that approval, right? To hit that standard of care. So once you know, you can have more of a gentle conversation with the member, help them understand that we're not telling you what you can and can't do.
[00:20:05] Speaker D: That's not our role.
[00:20:07] Speaker C: You can do whatever you want. Unfortunately, we do have a plan that governs us that tells us, you know, what claims or services can be paid.
[00:20:19] Speaker D: For and what can't.
[00:20:21] Speaker C: Right now, your service doesn't meet those criteria.
[00:20:25] Speaker D: You can appeal if your physician has.
[00:20:28] Speaker C: New information that can help attain the.
[00:20:31] Speaker B: Approval you get, like second opinions or even third opinions.
[00:20:36] Speaker C: What we do, we offer something called a peer to peer review where the ordering or attending physician can actually get on the phone with our reviewer. And a lot of times cases can be worked out on the provider side and are seeing hundreds of patients and.
[00:20:54] Speaker D: Maybe all the information doesn't get to be reviewed.
[00:20:58] Speaker C: A lot of times there might be.
[00:20:59] Speaker D: Clinical information that needs to be sent.
[00:21:01] Speaker C: To our medical management that can put it, push it over the top, you know, so. And gain that approval.
[00:21:09] Speaker B: Yeah.
Oh, I was curious because you do have a background. Since we talked about you being a business manager and working in the trades, working with the tools. How do you think that that background helps you today as a fund administrator?
[00:21:24] Speaker D: Yeah, that's a great question.
[00:21:26] Speaker C: Having folks familiar with the industry is invaluable for leadership positions at fund offices. And again, I know many, many administrators who have no similar background to mine, but some of them are, I'd say most are way smarter than me and they have MBAs, CPAs, PhDs.
[00:21:46] Speaker D: We found our funds here in Decatur.
[00:21:49] Speaker C: Have found that having folks in leadership roles here at the fund office, you're almost kind of an intermediary between the outside world, IBEW members, NECA contractors, electrical.
[00:22:03] Speaker D: Contractors in our office. Right. So we're kind of like in between, but.
[00:22:09] Speaker C: Well, you know, we dealt with a couple issues about reciprocity.
We've dealt here just within the past week. We've dealt with a couple of issues around employer reporting. You know, some of the things we've already talked about around employer reporting, employers reporting late that causing hiccups with member eligibility, things like that. A lot of times this isn't their fault or anything. They just, they haven't lived that other side experience to kind of know what the plight of the member and the employer outside of this office. It's nice for us to be able to add context, especially to like our managers. So of our 40 folks here, about.
[00:22:51] Speaker D: 10 of us are in management, right?
[00:22:53] Speaker C: We're non bargaining. The other 30 or so folks here in our office, so like our accounting clerks and claims processors and customer service reps, they all belong to a union themselves, IBW local, which is not one of our locals, but Local 51 and Springfield, the clerical division of Local 51. Especially going back to the in between and why it's the what.
[00:23:21] Speaker B: So of the of those 10 people in leadership, what percent have a union.
[00:23:25] Speaker C: Background right now, just two of us, you know, that have the two of us.
[00:23:29] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:23:30] Speaker C: Act like field experience being a manager, foreman or representative of employers as well.
[00:23:38] Speaker B: I think actually what you're talking about I feel like is part of the impetus of this podcast. You do need all those voices and perspectives to make a good decision. So it's not like everybody has to have the same background. In fact, that wouldn't be that helpful probably in a lot of these discussions because you do want somebody who has a Lot of accounting knowledge. And you do want somebody who has a lot of whatever knowledge, you know, all the different knowledge too. If you didn't have anybody with your background or your type of background with work in the union and then union leadership or as a contractor. I think what you're saying is that you benefit from having that perspective in the room.
[00:24:18] Speaker C: Absolutely. And I can help, you know, some.
[00:24:20] Speaker D: Of our people where they can help.
[00:24:22] Speaker C: Me in learning, you know, some of those weeds I like to get in. Right in about details about IT processes or accounting processes or contributions, intake processes, things that are the bread and butter of our staff.
[00:24:36] Speaker B: And you don't need to because you have the other people to help it.
[00:24:39] Speaker C: Exactly, exactly. Yeah. So it's a reciprocal learning experience here internally.
The biggest thing is knowing what's going on the outside world and being able to explain that to our people internally so they can understand more of the kind of the big picture of what's going on out there. And then it helps them do their job better as well and do what we're here to do better. And that's serve all the members better.
[00:25:07] Speaker B: I love that. That's like the perfect ending, I feel like, isn't it?
[00:25:13] Speaker C: You had questions prepared, didn't you?
[00:25:15] Speaker B: I did a few. Mostly the questions that came out of the conversation, which is the way I wanted to do that. I mean, I've always envisioned it that way, that it's an organic conversation.
But I have, you know, there's always those pauses in conversation. I just have the next one lined up. The only other one I had, I think what you ended on is great. The only other question which we may not even care about is what does your day to day look like? I have no idea. Like what do you do?
[00:25:43] Speaker C: The best answer, I could not tell you if you had me at sword point on the edge of a cliff. I couldn't tell you what I do every day.
[00:25:53] Speaker B: This is one of the questions actually I wanted to ask everybody because I struggle. People ask me like, what do you do? And I say, well, you know, I own and run a software company. Oh, what's the software?
I don't even want to get into it because as soon as I say we're calculating contributions from multi employer benefit, I mean like they're just like the eyes glaze over and they just kind of nod and, and then walk away. So I'm curious, when you talk to somebody outside of this, like outside of this industry, you're just meeting somebody for the first time socially and they say.
[00:26:30] Speaker C: What do you Do I usually tell them I work in administration of employee benefit plans like health insurance? Because most people, like you say a health and welfare plan. What a wealth.
[00:26:43] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:26:45] Speaker C: So, you know, the person who's not in our world doesn't understand the term, you know, welfare, welfare plan or welfare fund.
But, you know, I usually just tell them.
And then in retirement and pension benefits as well, and you know, our office does the administration, you know, we make the claim payments.
[00:27:04] Speaker D: I mean, just kind of keep it.
[00:27:05] Speaker C: General to where people can understand that. You know, we make the claim payments. We make, we write the pension checks every month to electricians that are affiliated with the IBW throughout the Midwest and Southeast.
That's kind of like the elevator conversation, my day.
[00:27:22] Speaker B: Yeah, but your day to day has got to be different because you're not dealing with that specifically.
[00:27:28] Speaker C: Answering questions is a huge force. I mean, that's probably like 50%, trustees, internal staff, you know, asking me questions, questions, just question, question, question. You know, sometimes it might take two weeks to answer one. You know, because you just. The research and the, you, you have, you know, I have to go seek other sources for answers.
[00:27:51] Speaker B: Like our question about the 401k data.
Yeah, question.
[00:27:58] Speaker D: Yeah, exactly. I like to try, and this is.
[00:28:01] Speaker C: Something I've had to be more intentional about, but I have five folks here in the office who report directly to me and, you know, at least take.
[00:28:11] Speaker D: A little time every day to visit.
[00:28:13] Speaker C: With them somewhat socially, but not too deep. Just like, hey, how was your weekend? You got big plans for the night. But mainly just to check in and avail myself to them.
[00:28:25] Speaker D: I'm here to help. We have two newer accountants who have.
[00:28:28] Speaker C: Been here less than a year.
We took on the admin of the 401k plan. So still some nuances, even after almost 2 years. I wanted to just check in. A lot of projects are birthed out of trustee wishes, meeting directives or sidebar stuff. They're usually well intended. The trustees want to improve something or.
[00:28:51] Speaker D: They feel like something isn't right or.
[00:28:53] Speaker C: It could be improved, you know, if it's benefit or a process or something like that. So, you know, that's where, you know, I get into a project work. Vendor onboarding has been big the past few years.
We switched prescription benefit managers last year.
Pbms, that's, you know, there's acronym PBMS if you want to put that on your definitions list. But, but, you know, that is a. It's a monumental undertaking. They have, you know, just oodles of questions for us. They want to make sure. The plan and the benefits and everything's.
[00:29:29] Speaker D: Set up right for members.
[00:29:31] Speaker C: But we've implemented several new programs within the health plan, the welfare fund the trustees have approved here, like a virtual physical therapy program, family building, infertility family building benefit.
We're going to be looking at or starting this month, an onboarding of a cancer screening event or vendor based programs where people can be sitting kids at home. A lot of time goes into that vendor interaction. We just implemented a new medical management vendor effective Friday or Saturday. A lot of vendor work and member escalations probably, I don't know, maybe upward of 20% of my time, maybe not quite 20. That might be a little heavy. But is dealing with, you know, something related to member escalation and then meeting prep.
[00:30:21] Speaker D: Our board meetings, as you can imagine.
[00:30:23] Speaker C: Are with that number of people or wild extravaganzas that usually go on for roughly a week between the health beneficiaries.
We work in subcommittees because our board's so large.
So that helps the board be more agile.
[00:30:40] Speaker B: How often do you do that? Quarterly or.
[00:30:42] Speaker C: No, twice a year. So biannual twice a year. So it's, it's really about, you know, a six, eight week process getting ready.
[00:30:50] Speaker D: For one of those.
[00:30:51] Speaker C: So between pulling in information from all the vendors and service providers, working with our team, our admin director whose office is next to mine, she and I, you know, work together to get meetings prepped and agendas formed and things like that. We actually have a 401k board meeting coming up on Monday, A much smaller board, thank goodness. We do those over zoom appeals meetings like health plan appeals.
[00:31:16] Speaker D: Those meetings are quarterly and they can.
[00:31:19] Speaker C: Get pretty intensive as far as not only the prep, but actually the meetings themselves. Yeah, a lot of, a lot of that going on and trying to get some continuing education by attending conferences like the IBW NIGA conference, the international foundation conferences and sometimes local trainings. Just trying to stay sharp. Otherwise.
[00:31:40] Speaker B: Yeah, that is busy.
[00:31:44] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:31:44] Speaker B: Do you feel like. So in my world, our work is constantly changing.
I have to do a lot of vision stuff. But in your work it sounds like you are reporting data frequently looking at past performance and thinking about the future, especially in terms of pension guessing.
Are there changes coming that you're like, this is going to change the way that we do fund administration or are you pretty much like maybe some of the tools will change but this is how it's going to go for the foreseeable?
[00:32:17] Speaker C: No, it's definitely not locked in. It's usually laws, legislation that precipitates changes in administration. What those laws do, what we've seen.
[00:32:27] Speaker D: In our tangible operations, they don't change.
[00:32:30] Speaker C: A lot but, but they cause us to do extra duties reporting. That's been a big thing with the government through the Consolidated Appropriations act, which had another act called the no Surprises act or the Transparency. I think a lot of legislation, you usually have some lead time right before it actually passes.
But yeah, I mean there's, there's no way to predict it.
[00:32:59] Speaker D: A lot of times until the final.
[00:33:00] Speaker C: Version comes out, we don't know the final rules, like what we have to be guided by and abide to.
So yeah, a lot what we've seen with recent legislation, you know, I mentioned the CAA for one, but it causes us more work basically.
[00:33:18] Speaker D: Right.
[00:33:19] Speaker C: So more reporting we have to do.
[00:33:21] Speaker D: And send a cms.
[00:33:24] Speaker C: Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services for the glossary or send to the Department of Labor. We've had a couple of the mental health parody rules, cyber security rules have kind of been imposed. Guidelines have been imposed by the DOL and caused us to have to do a lot more just to have things documented and processes in place to accommodate the laws that have come along with that. So you know, that's the biggest areas of change. But, and I mean in growth too. I mean we've, like I mentioned, we've.
[00:33:58] Speaker D: We'Ve grown immensely over the years.
[00:34:01] Speaker C: We did lose several locals about 20.
[00:34:05] Speaker D: Years ago to help and seed the.
[00:34:07] Speaker C: National plan within the IBW. We've stayed steady. We gained a bigger local 13 years ago out of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. And you know, I mean, so then.
[00:34:18] Speaker D: Since that period, you know, work has.
[00:34:20] Speaker C: Continued to flourish over the last 10 years in our locals.
[00:34:23] Speaker D: Our locals have grown, the work base has grown.
[00:34:26] Speaker C: And so you know, I mean it's, it's growth. It's kind of doing the same thing but in different ways maybe too. I mean we're always trying to find.
[00:34:34] Speaker D: More efficient ways to do things.
[00:34:36] Speaker C: We actually have a person on staff. Our titles are our Continuous Improvement Coordinator. So working on internal processes, job aids for our staff. So yeah, it's, it's been, it's been good to have that position on board. But yeah, I mean of course technology changes, development of some apps mainly through vendors and you know, web based tools that our members can use has been really, really good. We're going to continue to develop that. We have plans for the next couple of years on, along some of the tech side too.
[00:35:11] Speaker B: All right, is there anything else you want to put in? I feel like we covered a lot like you just had great things to.
[00:35:29] Speaker A: That'S it for this episode of on the Fringe. A huge thank you to Kevin Cope for sharing his insights, stories, and the deep care he brings to serving thousands of members every day. If there's one takeaway, it's this. Behind every claim, every check, and every tough call is a team committed to doing right by their members, and that work matters more than ever. If you enjoyed this conversation, make sure to subscribe and leave us a review. And if you have questions or ideas for future episodes, we'd love to hear from you. Thanks for listening and we'll see you next time.
