Employee Benefits Division
The Employee Benefits Division handles all employee benefit program administration, employee enrollment, billing and payment to insurance carriers. Our programs include medical and dental insurance, basic term life and LTD insurance, cafeteria plan option such as health care and dependent care flexible spending accounts, term life, LTD and accident insurance and other employee benefits.
Open Enrollment for the 2013 Benefit Plan Year was from October, 9 2012 to October 26, 2012.
The On-site Employee Health Clinics help you save money on co-pays, deductibles and time! - The On-site Employee Health Clinics are open and scheduling appointments. At both clinics, employees and dependents older than 16 and who are on the employee's county healthplan, are able to access primary health care from a licensed Nurse Practitioner, supervised by a local physician, and who will assist you with managing chronic medical conditions such as diabetes and heart disease.
To schedule your appointment with the Nurse Practitioner at the Santa Barbara clinic please call (805) 681 4700, or just dial ext. 4700 during the hours of 7:30am - 4pm, Monday - Friday
To schedule your appointment with the Nurse Practitioner at the Santa Maria clinic please call (805) 934 6107, or just dial ext. 6107 during the hours of 7:30am - 4pm, Monday - Friday.
Other than seeing you for episodic and chronic disease management now with our Blue Shield EPO, PPO and HDHP plans the clinics can:
refer you directly to a specialist,
write you a prescription,
draw blood and send it for diagnostic testing,
write a lab requisition.
All of this can be done without you having to pay a co-pay!
Important Information
To obtain up-to-date information about training sessions, wellness tips and benefits change, go to our Current Benefits News section. There are also several employee discounts available for health care services, eyewear and cell phone plans and equipment. In addition, there is information on our leave of absence policies and procedures for FMLA and Military Leave.
Pursuant to Section 125 of the Internal Revenue Code, premiums paid by the employee for health, dental, and life insurance coverage are tax-exempt. The tax exemption applies only to premiums that are payroll deducted. For plans that provide the tax-exempt premium, the Internal Revenue Code prohibits changes in the employee's deduction during the plan year unless there is a qualifying change in status. If the County of Santa Barbara is not in compliance, the plan could lose its qualification and/or employees could be subject to an IRS audit and be required to pay additional taxes and possible penalties. The Irrevocability Rule applies to both increases and decreases in coverage, such as adding or dropping dependents from the health coverage or increasing or decreasing employee life insurance coverage.
To make any changes to you Health and Other Benefit plans outside of Open Enrollment you need to experience a Qualifying Event which are described in detail in the following 2 documents:
All enrollment forms and summary data of the plans are provided on this web site. For hard copy packets such as health insurance plan info, please contact your departmental payroll staff. To assist you with any health insurance coverage issues, we have also provided access to the CareCounsel Healthcare Assistance services at 1-888-227-3334.
For questions about your flexible spending claims, please call BCC at 1-800-685-6100.
If you have a benefits related question you are encouraged to read the FAQ section as some of the questions you have may be answered there. To contact us you may call (805) 568-2821 or (805) 568-2818.
Andreas Pyper and Maya Barraza
Your Employee Benefits Team