Corporate says it hired
Chapman Kelly near Louisville, Ky., to root out employees with ineligible children and other relatives on Gannett's health insurance plans. But the March 27 letter
warning employees about this new cost-saver doesn't say how Chapman Kelly gets paid. I figure it's a huge contract for the firm -- Gannett has 46,100 employees -- so I asked Chapman Kelly the following questions:
- Is Gannett paying your firm a share of the savings recouped under the new eligibility audit you are conducting for the company?
- Where does Gannett rank among all your clients?
Partner and co-founder Tony Schy's reply today: "It is Chapman Kelly's policy to not respond to media inquiries regarding our clients."
Corporate says it hired Chapman Kelly near Louisville, Ky., to root out employees with ineligible children and other relatives on Gannett's health insurance plans. But the March 27 letter warning employees about this new cost-saver doesn't say how Chapman Kelly gets paid. I figure it's a huge contract for the firm -- Gannett has 46,100 employees -- so I asked Chapman Kelly the following questions:
How else would they get paid? Whether you take their fee from the money they save Gannett, or you take it from a different Gannett account, but it's coming from the same place, either way.
ReplyDeleteThe Columbus, Ohio, school district is paying (or has paid) Chapman Kelly $90,000 for its services, according to this article (dated 8/10/07):
ReplyDeletehttp://louisville.bizjournals.com/louisville/stories/2007/08/13/story12.html
The school district expects to save $1.5 million in return.
"Expects" to save.
ReplyDeleteWhats wrong with a compnay during tough times trying to make sure it is only paying for what it should be paying for? Is it possible for the company to send any communication our without you thinking their is some evil master plan behind it? For what I have been reading on your blog the company is not smart enough to have an evil master plan. They may be ***gasp*** just trying to be good business people.
ReplyDeleteAnon@11:23 a.m.: If Chapman Kelly were to, say, earn a percentage of the money saved, it would have an incentive to be especially aggressive in knocking dependents off the health plan, where there's a gray area about eligibility. That same incentive wouldn't be in place if it worked on a fee-only basis.
ReplyDeleteThat's exactly what I'm thinking the scheme is about, Jim. The customer service person just told me to get a document that doesn't exist, or they won't clear the audit. They won't accept the notarized birth certificates as done in this locale.
ReplyDeleteI guess my kids aren't covered as of now, even though I'll be paying for their insurance until at least the next enrollment.
How handy is that now for Gannett? Not only do they dun people they might find who didn't qualify -- and I also am hard pressed trying to imagine more than a handful exist -- but they will show reduced medical insurance use and thereby lower future year's insurance costs, mostly to them. Never mind our kids could be dead because they declined coverage for valid clients ...
Maybe it's time to see a lawyer about a class-action suit on this.
(And "is expected to?" is exactly what I asked when I saw that Chapman-Kelly pitch. If it actually made VALID returns on any company's investment, no one would have to rely on a future expectation to validate the usefulness of Chapman-Kelly.)