The Alberta Teachers’ Association

The evolution of the Alberta School Employee Benefit Plan

Most teachers in Alberta are insured and receive benefit coverage through the Alberta School Employee Benefit Plan (ASEBP) and are on a health journey supported by ASEBP. Simply showing a membership card will cover all or most costs of a dentist visit, prescription medication or a new set of glasses.

For the unfortunate teacher who is disabled and unable to continue teaching, ASEBP Extended Disability Benefit provides 70 per cent of the teacher’s gross salary after 90 days, when sick leave entitlement normally expires. Should a teacher die because of an accident, the teacher’s family receives a life insurance payment equal to four times the teacher’s annual salary in a lump sum payment.

How did we get to this point? What exactly is the “health journey”?

ASEBP History

ASEBP exists due to a partnership first established in 1968 between the Alberta Teachers’ Association and the Alberta School Trustees Association (ASTA). Both organizations were seeking to pool resources to provide group life insurance and disability insurance at a reasonable cost. Coverage was provided by traditional insurance companies, but through the power of group purchasing, costs to the participating organizations were reduced. Through the first decade of its existence, ASEBP added benefit coverage for prescription medicines, dental care and vision care.

By 1984, ASEBP represented 148 participating employers and covered 34,000 education sector employees. With this large pool and annual premiums of $23 million, it moved to a self-funding model, taking on the financial responsibility for claims rather than relying on insurance companies to take the risk. This shift began with the Dental Care, Extended Health Care and Vision Care plans in 1984 and extended to the disability plan in 1985.

Having no third-party insurer involved meant an expanded role for trustees, which had two distinct advantages:

1. The appointed trustees could more easily tailor benefits to the specific needs of the education community.

2. Traditional insurers use investment returns to generate profits. As a trust, all ASEBP investment returns come back into the pool, helping to fund benefits and maintain reasonable premiums.

The Health Journey

In September 1997, the Board of Trustees created the Organizational Health Initiative in order to focus on learning how to improve the health of covered members. The goal was for ASEBP to help school boards develop and sustain healthy work environments. Numerous other initiatives followed as ASEBP grew and learned. As outlined in a health and benefits charter approved by the ASEBP trustees in September 2015, the organization is shifting its focus to the promotion of health rather than just the provision of benefits. This is the very heart of the health journey.

One initiative on this health journey is the provision of an Employee and Family Assistance Program (EFAP). Through Homewood Health, ASEBP’s Extended Health Care plan provides covered members and their families with lifestyle coaching, counselling and advice. These services can be accessed for a variety of reasons: post-partum issues, marital difficulties, concerns about care for elderly parents and financial challenges. ASEBP recognizes that addressing these concerns can improve the overall health of covered members and their families.

Another part of the health journey is the provision of an Early Intervention Plan (EIP) as part of Extended Disability Benefits. This is an effort to help teachers stay at work. A teacher who breaks her leg may be sitting at home itching to return to the classroom; however, pain and medication don’t allow the teacher to return to full-time duties. Through the early intervention plan, the teacher may be able to teach in the morning and rest in the afternoon so the leg can heal. In time, workload increases as the teacher heals. A multi-year pilot project determined that the plan was helpful in getting teachers back to optimum health quickly and keeping up with their classroom assignment, so the early intervention plan has been incorporated into the extended disability benefits plan.

Ultimately, health is a responsibility that falls on covered members as well. ASEBP is making efforts to educate members about health benefits through the creation of an ASEBP app. This allows covered members to access their claims history, submit claims quickly and even transfer claims to a Health Spending Account. Have you downloaded the app to your smartphone? The app includes a drug inquiry tool so that teachers can work with pharmacists to get the appropriate medications at the lowest cost to the teacher.

Today, ASEBP is accompanying over 55,000 covered members on their health journeys. Teachers are fully aware of the importance of the ASEBP health journey for themselves, but more importantly, good health allows teachers to provide the best possible service to the students entrusted to them by Alberta families.

Fred Kreiner is an executive staff officer in the Teacher Welfare program area of the Alberta Teachers’ Association.