The health care environment is changing. Costs for care continue to skyrocket. Employer-paid insurance prices are jumping forward each year. And employers are caught wondering what they can do to still offer a competitive compensation package without losing the farm.
The door has opened for Consumer Driven Health Plans (CDHPs) and High Deductible Health Plans (HDHPs). Touted as the solution to rising health care costs, more and more employers are choosing CDHPs and HDHPs as new options for their employees. In fact, Businessolver saw a 29% increase in the number of its clients offering HDHPs in 2010. But these new offerings aren’t without their issues. Employee adoption isn’t exactly on par with traditional health care plans (or no health insurance, for that matter). The 2010 EBRI/MGA Consumer Engagement in Health Care Survey(1) found an increase in CDHP enrollment grew only one percentage point from 2009 to 2010 (from 4% to 5%, respectively), and HDHP enrollment grew just one percentage point as well (from 13% in 2009 to 14% in 2010). Why the slow adoption? By design, CDHPs and HDHPs are completely different approaches to health care. These plans are the advent to consumer health care, and Americans aren’t accustomed to making real health care decisions.
The Reason for Slow Adoption
As CDHPs and HDHPs represent a foundational change in our approach to health care, employees need two things:
1. Information
2. Enrollment education assistance
Information delivery needs to occur on multiple levels. Employee needs range from basic informational meetings, to more-in-depth resources, to in-the-moment enrollment resources like plan comparisons and cost estimators. As these new plans present a whole new way to thinking, and can be a bit scary for employees, information sources must be available at the research and decision-making phases for employees to be sure of their decisions. The lack of knowledge and education is evident in individuals currently using these plans. According to the EBRI/MGA survey, of the 17.2 million individuals with an HDHP only 37% (6.3 million) who were eligible for a Health Savings Account (HSA) actually had opened an account. And without the HSA, most HDHPs are not nearly as effective as stand-alone health care insurance options.
Beyond information, many employees will benefit from enrollment education assistance. They will seek the advice of a live resource to answer questions and compare health care options. And depending on the size of the organization, that resource may need to be an outsourced partner. Employers (and their benefits brokers) now need to be much more informed so that they can accurately inform their employees.
Once the right educational tools are in place, employers can begin seeing the benefits of CDHPs and HDHPs. The EBRI/MGA survey found that individuals enrolled in CDHPs and HDHPs exemplified in more cost-conscious behavior, engaged more in wellness programs and had better health status than those enrolled in traditional health care plans. All of those improvements can pay serious dividends for employers looking for ways to manage increasing health care costs, while still maintaining a competitive edge in recruitment and retention of talented employees.
(1) Paul Fronstin, “Findings from the 2010 EBRI/MGA Consumer Engagement in Health Care Survey,” EBRI Issue Brief, no. 351, December 2010.
[...] are increasingly offering consumer-driven health plans (like HDHPs and CDHPs) to manage cost, but trends are showing that employees aren’t quickly [...]