Insurance Information

A survey carried out recently under the name of the Towers Perrin Health Care Cost study has revealed some important data regarding the Employer adoption of account-based health plans (ABHPs), showing that there has been a statistically significant increase in the use of these plans by employers during the last five years. The use of account-based health plans has helped employers to reduce their benefit costs and those of their employees with regard to employee participation in health care benefit plans. As the study shows that employers continue to see value in these plans in their assisting in the control of health care costs and in the reduction of the shared employee expense, it also revealed some other important characteristics that act to differentiate high from low performers, and which point to possible future trends that many believe all employers will begin to adopt in order to keep their costs down while enabling them as employers to continue to provide health care plans that assure the ongoing and continuing delivery of valuable and superior health care benefits.
The study report shows that76 percent of high performers who run plans that perform well, as compared with 50 percent of the lower performers report that they are using measurement disciplines to assist them in the building of action plans for performance improvement.
51 percent as opposed to 21 percent report building connectivity across all their health-related programs and health providers.
88 percent as opposed to 62 percent report that their company views employee health as a major element in the provision of a superior business performance. 76 percent as opposed to 60 percent indicate a willingness to create a culture of health in their organizations. 85 percent compared to 54 percent report that in their company there is a culture of shared responsibility and accountability.

New Employer Activities Indicate a New Direction In Health Care Plans

With the occurrence of continuing cost increases and the mounting recognition that the new health management plans are capable of slowing down and even reducing the increases in chronic illnesses, employers seem far more ready to make moves in new directions so as to bring about new forms of health care delivery in ways that can student a better job of addressing the growing challenges of health care. In addition, those proposals for health care reform that are being considered by Congress will support many of these new and original health care delivery methods.
Data indicate that employers are adopting a whole new range of bold and innovative changes that are directed at influencing employee behavior and decision making. In addition they are adopting leading-edge technologies and proceeding with the use of innovative actions that might possibly disrupt, for the good, the current delivery models of health care. This survey indicates that employers are considering several new directions to take including the use of employee incentives, to bring about innovations in health care employee benefit plans.

According to survey data, high-performing employers will, over the next few years, expand their use of incentives to encourage their employee to take part in various employee health and wellness initiatives, examples being health risk assessments, wellness programs and biometric screenings. Other innovative approaches being considered by employers include behavioral economics. In this case, employers are starting to leverage the potential behavioral economics holds for improving consumer decisions with regard to health and health care. The study indicates that 15 percent of those employers responding that are high performers are using this innovative decision design model today with another 48% expecting to do so in the near future. Also predicted to increase are allied programs that encourage good decision making and that in addition offer convenience as an incentive, including on-site biometric screening, encouragement of the eating of healthy foods and the provision of access to retail clinics.