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HomeMy WebLinkAboutInformation Update 0223211 AGENDA INFORMATION UPDATE February 23, 2021 5:00 PM, I.INFORMATION ONLY MEMO I.A.SilverSneakers Program Update 1 1 INFORMATION ONLY MEMORANDUM TO:Mayor and City Council FROM:Cory Vander Veen, Recreation Director THROUGH:Austin Weiss, Director of Parks and Recreation Diane Foster, Assistant City Manager MEMO DATE: February 17, 2021 MEETING DATE: February 23 rd, 2021 RE:Recreation SilverSneakers program update SUMMARY:The City of Aspen Recreation Department seeks to provide an update to the City Council and the community regarding the current SilverSneakers program agreement. In response to updating all of the Aspen Recreation Center’s (ARC) agreements and going through the established cost recovery of each program, the services provided for each agreement, and modifications to SilverSneakers membership services will be forthcoming.   BACKGROUND HISTORY:SilverSneakers is a popular fitness program for people 65 and older that are enrolled in medicare and medicaid plans.SilverSneakers provides facility access for members. Recreation facilities, such as the ARC, voluntarily choose to be partners in this program and operate as an eligible facility for the program. In 2011, the Aspen Recreation Department entered into an agreement with the national SilverSneakers program. At that time there were no other participating recreational facilities in the community so those enrolled in SilverSneakers had the ARC as the only available facility. However, accessibility and partner programs have grown over the last decade. Currently, there are several SilverSneaker participating gyms throughout the Roaring Fork Valley. The initial intent for this agreement was to partner with this program to ensure individuals over 65 years of age enrolled in medicare part c plans and medicaid plans had access to a partner facility. This population was underserved at the time. Recently, the Recreation Department has had meetings with Trinity Health to clarify details of the agreement. We have a strong SilverSneakers membership of around 800 total members. These are defined as a national silver sneaker member that comes to the facility at least once throughout the year to the ARC.Of those 864 members, 661 are SilverSneaker members that have addresses and PO boxes in the Roaring Fork Valley. 2 2 The SilverSneakers agreement that the ARC is obliged to,mandates that our facility communicates to our users what the exact terms are that we must follow,or the ARC would be subject to a breach of contract. The agreement states that enrolled SilverSneakers members receive up to ten visits per month or ten full-day use of the ARC facility for which Trinity Health reimburses the ARC three dollars per user per day. In the ARC,these users can use the pools, steam room, sauna, hot tub, cardio equipment, weight training equipment,and aerobic room. This is a change as our current users have been using fitness classes and other facilities with this benefit even though the agreement has never allowed amenities use like fitness classes, ice skating, pickleball, or water aerobics classes, to name a few,in the agreement. Unfortunately,with the current COVID conditions and restrictions in place at the ARC,the cost recovery model is not what it used to be pre-pandemic, thus putting a strain on value-added programming like fitness classes. With reduced capacity at the ARC,accompanied by challenging financial times, we can no longer offer SilverSneaker members free value-added programming. Otherwise conditions become such that one group of users would be constantly favored over every other group. Therefore,we can no longer proceed with this model, which went above and beyond what the ARC has agreed to with Trinity Health. Moving forward, SilverSneakers members will be charged for any programming not already included in the agreement, which would be amenity uses like ice skating, pickleball, open rock wall, fitness classes, and water aerobics classes. Currently, the ARC charges nine dollars for classes for other seniors. To ease SilverSneakers members into this change, the ARC is offering a special rate of half-off and will charge that population five dollars per class. The Recreation Department also has income-based scholarships available that seniors can apply for. In summary, we are not changing or getting rid of the agreement, but just following the terms as outlined in the existing agreement with Trinity Health. In 2020, the ARC put the SilverSneakers program on pause from March –November.It then reinstated all memberships,included the SilverSneakers.The ARC will continue to work with Pitkin County Senior Services and provide information,opportunities, scholarships to this population in our community. The ARC has an opportunity mid-2021 to renegotiate its contract with Trinity Health for the SilverSneakers fees and can look into a further opportunity for additional reimbursements at that time. 3 3 FINANCIAL IMPACT: The agreement states Trinity Health pays the Recreation Department three dollars for each SilverSneaker visit up to 10 visits per month. The numbers below show how many visits and the revenue brought in over 2018 and 2019. The Recreation Department uses the business plan that was adopted by ARC Advisory Committee and City Council in 2015 as the guide to recovery models for each program. This program is classified as a CORE program using the CORE amenities of the ARC. All CORE programs seek to achieve a 50% cost recovery goal. Our value-added program like all our fitness classes operate at a 100% cost recovery model. The SilverSneaker program in 2019 was 67% subsidized by the department and will keep increasing because there is no inflation rate of the three dollars per visit rate provided by the SilverSneakers program. The Recreation fees increase each year based on minimum CPI and would include this new SilverSneaker fee. The ARC Advisory Committee has recommended to staff to either cancel the agreement or strictly follow the terms and offer alternatives to coincide with the Department’s direction to get to 50% cost recovery on CORE programs. Year Number of visits Revenue Revenue if regular senior rate from these daily visits Providing subsidy for this program Non-SilverSneaker Senior fee 2018 7,315 $21,947 $58,520 62.5%$8 per visit 2019 8,604 $25,814 $77,436 67%$9 per visit This program does provide a core program for our senior population to use the ARC. We support keeping the SilverSneakers program with use of the core areas of just the ARC facility, offering reduced program punch cards, and scholarship opportunities. 4