FAQ's

The Board of County Commissioners is required to complete the Group Application and adopt the Participation Agreement with a remittance of the first month’s premium equivalent. More details will be included in the CEBCO proposal presented to each county requesting rates for the program.

All contracted networks are national in scope and seamless. This means that where there are border areas, a participant can access networks on both sides of the state line and still receive the same benefits if utilizing participating providers. For network provider information, please see each vendor’s respective website:

• Anthem www.anthem.com
• Delta Dental www.deltadentaloh.com
• VSP www.vsp.com

The appeals process will begin with each vendor administrator’s internal appeals process. If a participant is not satisfied with the outcome of the vendor’s decision, the claimant will reach out to their regional Benefit Specialist for options.

As a self-funded consortium, we are better able to manage the costs of the program. This funding arrangement allows us to avoid paying premium taxes and the higher retention costs of a fully-insured program. Self-funding also allows greater flexibility in designing plan benefits.

CEBCO stands for the County Employee Benefit Consortium of Ohio and was formed by the County Commissioners Association of Ohio (CCAO) in response to concerns that were expressed about the cost of health insurance being borne by Ohio counties for their employees. CEBCO is a group purchasing consortium available to county governments in Ohio.

Each county will have the ability to offer up to 2 medical options, 2 dental options, and 1 prescription drug option.

The purpose of the standard plan designs is to provide administrative efficiencies resulting in lower costs. The standard plan designs were selected based on the most common plan designs provided by the counties during a survey process. There may be certain instances where a county may need to customize a benefit plan for a particular reason (i.e., to satisfy a collective bargaining agreement) in which case we will work with the county and the vendor to address these non-standard plan features.

By banding together in a consortium, the counties reap the benefits of reduced administrative costs, reduced stop loss fees, the spread of risk over a larger number of participants, and the non-profit nature of the consortium. Counties will be able to participate in a self-funded program on terms that they would not be able to negotiate individually, due to their size and tolerance for risk, but the rates quoted by the consortium will be “guaranteed cost” for each twelve month period of participation.

The Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield network is among the broadest provider networks in Ohio. Anthem was selected after an extensive review of the hospital and physician networks in the state.

CEBCO is a non-profit corporation formed by CCAO to provide cost effective employee benefit programs for counties in Ohio. CEBCO is governed by a Board comprised of representatives of counties that participate in the program. The Board will consist of not less than nine (9) or more than fifteen (15) directors. Two-thirds of all the directors shall be County Commissioners of member counties and the remaining one-third may be employees of member counties.