Medical Insurance

St. Peter’s Health offers a wide array of benefits to employees and their families, including Medical, Prescription, Dental, Vision, Life/Disability, and supplemental options like Critical Illness and Accident Insurance. On top of these traditional benefits, we also offer up to a 6% contribution for 403b retirement plan participants; a free family membership to Capital City Health Club; educational scholarships through the Fred C. Olson Learning & Development Institute; and an expanding childcare center dedicated to serving St. Peter’s families.

Every year, we manage rising healthcare costs by making thoughtful changes to our benefits plan designs rather than just passing increases along to our employees. For example, the tiered benefits program we created in 2024 allows us to deeply discount any care received from a St. Peter’s provider or facility because we can control those costs. When you choose St. Peter’s, you’re getting a discount! Many employees still have the misconception
that Tier 2 (Allegiance Network Tier) means they’re being penalized with higher costs, but these costs are actually standard network rate. Getting care from St. Peter’s in Tier 1 is actually a discount, because we can choose to do that for our employees.

Because we recognized that St. Peter’s does not provide every kind of specialist, service or treatment, we implemented a “Service Level Request” process with this tiered program so employees can request care from a non-St. Peter’s provider or facility be billed at Tier 1 if St. Peter’s does not offer it. This year, [200+] requests have been reviewed and the vast majority processed at Tier 1. With so many of these requests, we’ve decided to decrease the burden of the Service Level Request and instead create an additional “Friendlies” tier for 2025. Like the St. Peter’s Tier, the “Friendlies” Tier will be discounted from standard Allegiance network rates and include non-St. Peter’s providers and facilities that offer essential specialties, services or higher levels of care that St.Peter’s does not provide. For providers or services not included in the St. Peter’s or Friendlies tiers, you’ll still need to submit a form to request coverage at the Tier 2 level.

NEW FOR 2025:
Premium Changes: Last year, we faced a 20% increase in premiums to offset the increase in our costs to offer health insurance. Instead, we made thoughtful changes to plan designs, implemented the St. Peter’s discount tier, and shifted most of the premium increases to higher earners. As a result, we ended up reducing premiums for 60% of our plan participants! This year, to keep up with inflation we are introducing another slight increase in premiums based on your income level. On average, total premiums will be 4% higher than last year, with lower increases for those with lower incomes.

Open Enrollment: Open enrollment runs from November 1 to November 27. More details about enrollment support and sessions will follow. This year’s enrollment is passive, meaning if you don’t make changes, you’ll keep your current benefits—except for Health Savings Account contributions, which you’ll need to update if you want to keep contributing pre-tax dollars.

Physical Therapy Updates: Based off your feedback, we implemented a flat copay of $75 on the PPO plan instead of the requirement to hit the deductible first.

Enhanced Wellness Incentive: We increased the wellness incentive from 10% to 20% and everyone will receive this discount for 2025. Because of this shift, we are providing everyone with the wellness discount for the 2025 Plan year. We are also inviting qualified individuals to participate in the Lifestyle Medicine Program. For these individuals, participation will be required to maintain the wellness discount for the 2026 Plan Year.

Voluntary Benefit Changes: We’re partnering with new vendors which for you means lower costs than what was offered in 2024 along with even better service!

Rightway Service Updates: We will be removing the Rightway concierge service for 2025. Thanks to your feedback, what was intended to be an added level of customer service ended up causing more confusion than it was worth.

Network Information: St. Peter’s Health plans do not cover any Benefis providers, except in emergencies. Care at St. Peter’s will always be less expensive for you than outside providers. Any labs or x-rays done outside St. Peter’s will be billed at Tier 3 (standard Allegiance network rate). To check your provider’s tier, visit the Allegiance website.

As we continually make changes to ensure we’re offering competitive benefits, we routinely review what other employers in our region and health systems our size around the country are offering. We’re pleased to report that St. Peter’s
– 90% of all health systems have a “narrow network” option, similar to our St. Peter’s discount and Friendlies tiers.
– Our Tier 1 (St. Peter’s) deductible and OOP costs are better than 75% of all the health plans we surveyed. And, access to the range of
providers in our Tier 1 benefits is equal to or larger than 90% of the narrow networks surveyed.
– Our Tier 1 (St. Peter’s) HDHP deductible is the lowest of all the plans surveyed.
– Only St. Peter’s has tiered premiums based on salary/income where lower income members pay far less than higher income members.
– Our copay for Emergency Room care is the lowest in all the plans we surveyed.
– Only St. Peter’s offers free generic prescriptions.
– Only St. Peter’s offers a $500 maximum OOP cost for delivering a baby – new for 2025 when you deliver at St. Peter’s!