County changes its policy for shots

Only uninsured county employees will be provided with free flu shots this year, Jay County Commissioners decided Monday morning.
The previous policy was to provide all county employees with free flu shots. Insurance companies were not billed.
Peggy Atkinson, the health department’s vital records manager, suggested last week the flu shots remain free, but that insurance companies be billed so the free flu shots would cost the county less.
County attorney Lon Racster explained that wouldn’t work — the county would be billing insurance companies for a fee it had not actually charged.
“How can you file a claim on something that there was no cost involved?” commissioner Doug Inman asked.
Racster returned this week having written legal language, which the county adopted, about extending free flu shots to uninsured employees only.
Insured employees still are not likely to have to pay, because insurance companies tend to pay 100 percent of the cost of flu shots, Atkinson said.
Around 200 employees got a flu shot last year. Nearly all of them were insured through the county or through a spouse’s insurance that the county could bill.
In other business, the commissioners:
•Heard from Jay Emergency Medical Services director Pat Frazee that the department received $62,721.92 in reimbursements from Medicaid.
•Heard from Emergency Management Agency director Ralph Frazee that his department will save $25 per month by dropping from three phone lines to two.
•Learned from highway department superintendent Ken Wellman that paving a half mile section of State Line Road from between Park and Division roads would cost at least $40,000.
State Line Road resident Tina Schwieterman approached the commissioners Sept. 8 asking whether a section of road could be converted from stone to pavement to better serve clients who go to her house for tax preparation. Another resident of the road called the commissioners Monday morning about paving.
No decision has been made yet.
•Approved Jay County’s Purdue Extension office being closed from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sept. 30 while the staff has a training session at Jay County Public Library.