Ithaca College employees have three more days to re-enroll and choose their health care benefits package for the upcoming year.

Full-time employees who buy into the college’s health insurance, Aetna, will have two different options to choose from: the High Deductible Health Plan and the Open Access POS II Plan. Though there was no increase in premiums, deductibles and co-pays for nongeneric prescriptions were raised.

Mark Coldren, associate vice president of the human resources department, said the college’s goal was not to increase premiums that employees would have to pay, especially since salary raises were not given this year.

He said by adjusting the deductibles and the co-pays for prescriptions, the premiums were able to remain the same and even drop slightly in the High Deductible plan.

In the Open Access plan, deductibles for an individual plan were raised from $100 to $150, and deductibles for the family plan were raised from $300 to $450. For the High Deductible plan, the deductible for employee-only coverage is $1,250 and $2,500 for employee and dependent coverage.

Coldren said to make the High Deductible plan more attractive the college will be contributing to a Health Savings Account that will roll over from year to year. The college will contribute $1,000 for an employee plan and $1,500 for employee and dependent coverage. This means an individual with the High Deductible plan will only have to pay $250 to meet the deductible — the rest will come from the college’s contribution, Coldren said.

Cheryl Freer, director of employee benefits and work life, said the deductible is waived for any services that are considered to be preventive in nature.

But she said the member would have to meet the deductible for anything that does not meet the preventative threshold before the plan started to pay anything.

Coldren said the co-pay for prescriptions changed from $10/$15/$20 last year to $10/$30/$50. He said the college’s goal is to have more people use generic when it is appropriate and available.

In the re-enrollment pamphlet given to employees to help them make their decision, the college points out that the current percentage split in benefits — 83 percent from the college and 17 percent from the employee — is “not a sustainable strategy” and that beginning next year it will be “necessary” to adjust the college’s subsidy level.

Coldren said he didn’t know yet what the changes in the college’s subsidy will be.

Ellen Diffenderfer, manager of facilities and portable equipment in the Roy H. Park School of Communications, said it is good that the premiums are not going up, but the changes in deductibles will be difficult.

“It’s one thing to raise your deductible and decrease what the college is going to contribute to us buying our insurance, but to do it at the same time you’re not going to give your staff and faculty pay increases is a double whammy,” she said.