Shannon Devitz could read the room.
Although Devitz was convinced that changing healthcare brokers would open up Brookfield Township to a new world of analytics and someone always looking for ways to save the township money, fellow township Trustees Dan Suttles and Mark Ferrara were not convinced.
Ferrara and Suttles did not want Devitz to feel like she had wasted her time, but her 18 months of work had left the township essentially where it started.
Devitz’s point was that the township has to do something to try and lower its healthcare costs. The premium for 2025-26 – the plan year runs Sept. 1 to Aug. 31– was $20,209 a month. Provider Anthem has quoted an increase of 9.9 percent for the new plan year. If that holds, the township’s new monthly payment will be $22,212, a 12-month total of $266,544.
“If you see what’s going on in the world, we’re gonna get even more nailed next year,” she said Aug. 3. “Trying to look at different things to see how we can reduce costs was all I was simply trying to do.”
Brookfield resident John Zebroski has been the township’s broker for many years. As a broker, Zebroski tries to find the best coverage for the best rate for the township. He is paid by the provider – not the township – a per-employee fee each month, he said following a July 6 meeting with the trustees.
Zebroski said he goes to multiple providers to try to get the best deal, but Anthem’s premium “has been substantially better than anybody else” for many years. While that limits his bargaining power with Anthem, it doesn’t end it.
“Basically, I’m going back on my hands and knees and begging, ‘Hey, long-time client. Let’s look a little deeper into it. Give us some relief here,’” Zebroski said. “We’ve been pretty successful in doing that.”
He said Anthem initially quoted a premium hike of 14.9 percent for 2025-26 and he was able to get that down to 6.9 percent.
“Anything in the single digits, in our business, is good, but we always strive for better,” he said.
Zebroski also administers the plan, which includes enrolling and unenrolling employees for coverage, updating vital information, answering questions on claims and helping employees resolve issues. He does not charge for these services.
In her research, Devitz discovered OPOC.us, a family-owned company that primarily works for small and mid-sized companies and started by serving non-profits.
The trustees hosted a public telephone call with OPOC.us Senior Director Chris Havey on June 29. Havey said OPOC.us would not only be the township’s broker but a “strategic adviser” on healthcare and offer employees a “benefit advocate team” to work out issues.
“This is a totally different resource conversation” than the township can have with Zebroski, Havey said.
Havey claimed the township is getting an “off-the-shelf” product with Anthem, something that is “OK. It just needs work.”
OPOC.us would get paid in one of two ways: it could take a fee from the healthcare provider, as Zebroski does, or it can take a cut of any savings it procures for the township, an option that Havey heavily sold to the trustees.
Havey also claimed that his company could “fix all the administrative headaches” the township is having with healthcare.
Township Fiscal Officer Dena McMullin said the administrative headaches have been legion in the past year since the township started offering a Health Reimbursement Account card that employees and their families are supposed to be able to use for costs such as co-pays, deductibles and prescriptions. The township has had issues getting the cards properly loaded with the amount of money that is supposed to be on them, and allowing access to costs, such as prescriptions, that are supposed to be eligible.
“The last year has been horrid, as far as this card,” McMullin said. “It’s been hard because I, now, have to track everything. In the past, John tracked everything.”
Going forward, it shouldn’t be so bad, McMullin said.
The HRA card issues “should not reflect on John Zebroski,” Suttles said. “It was a change in the way we did things.”
The trustees came down to having different perspectives on the township’s healthcare plan. Devitz, who does not get her healthcare through the township, said it is not working. Suttles, who is on the plan, countered: “We’ve had some glitches with a handful of employees. It’s not dysfunctional totally.”
“I can’t see a major difference with what this other company (OPOC.us) offers and what we have now,” Suttles said.
Ferrara, who also is on the plan, said Havey “oversold it, with promising a lot, and then backpedaling,” an opinion Devitz did not agree with.
The unionized police employees submitted a letter in support of OPOC.us
Suttles said the township needs to assume some of the responsibility for the problems and suggested having Zebroski meet with employees semi-regularly so employees understand what benefits they are entitled to.
McMullin added that there have been instances where she has overlooked something or missed an email, delaying the resolution to an issue.
