A Role for Everyone:
Employers’ Costs are Soaring.
Adopt Consumer-Focused Health Plans
In an effort to control spending, ultimately reduce annual premiums, and provide employees more choice and transparency, employers are focusing more on consumer-focused health plans.
Consumer-focused health plans engage consumers in their health benefits and ultimately guide them to make more educated decisions. Educated employees change their behavior both in how they choose and use their benefits. This change can lead to a reduction in unnecessary medical spending. This in turn decreases the treat of rising premiums.
Consider Health Savings Accounts (HSAs)
You’ve probably heard about HSAs. You may even be considering them for your company, hoping they can solve one of your biggest challenges – offering meaningful health benefits to employees without doing significant damage to your bottom line.
Consumer-focused health plans help drive down costs because engaged consumers make smarter, more well-informed health care decisions. Under traditional plans, people are insulated from costs, giving them little reason to question whether they really need an additional test or prescription. Consumer-focused plans encourage consumers to consider the real costs associated with their health care choices.
Controlling Costs
For example, when employees use tools that help them utilize their health benefits—such as online hospital comparisons based on average discounted price for treating an illness from beginning to end—they can save an average of $207 per employee per year. They are taking control their medical costs.
Customizing Coverage
Consumer-focused plans also allow employees to customize their insurance coverage—based on what is being offered—to meet their personal health care needs and family budgets. Employees are able to pay for only the things they want and need. Employers can therefore more accurately hold the line on annual costs.
HSAs work best as part of an overall strategy to engage employees as health care consumers. There is much more to affordable health benefits than HSAs. With consumer choice health care, the journey is just as important as the destination itself.
