Newspapers Examine Employers' Efforts To Reduce Health Care Costs

Main Category: Health Insurance / Medical Insurance
Article Date: 11 Oct 2007 - 8:00 PDT

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Several newspapers recently published articles about employers' efforts to control health care cost. Summaries of the coverage appear below.

• Care managers: More employers are contracting with care-management or integrated-health firms as a way to control rising health care costs, the Wall Street Journal reports. Care managers use data-mining techniques to examine claims and help workers manage costly chronic health conditions, as well as review physician treatment plans for compliance with best practice standards and recommend less invasive and lower-cost procedures and drugs. While the "services are welcomed by some employees," others "find the programs intrusive," the Journal reports (McQueen, Wall Street Journal, 10/9).
  
  
• Company-run clinics: Company-run health clinics are a "growing trend" among large companies trying to reduce health care costs, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports. According to a Watson Wyatt Worldwide survey of 600 companies, most of which were considered large employers, 23% had their own clinics. Most of those clinics provided only wellness services or urgent care, but more companies are setting up clinics that offer a full range of services (Boulton, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 10/7).
  
  
• High-deductible health plans: High-deductible plans with tax-preferred health savings accounts are not as popular as once predicted, but they can help bring down costs by making people more aware of what they are spending on health care, according to industry experts, the Raleigh News & Observer reports. However, some employees may be wary of the plans' high deductibles (Simmons, Raleigh News & Observer, 10/7). According to the Charlotte Observer, more employers are offering their workers health reimbursement accounts, under which an employer will pay for part of the deductible, as a way to make consumers more aware of health care costs (Baldwin, Charlotte Observer, 10/7). The News & Observer reports that workers who are willing to pay high deductibles can use the Internet and other resources to find health coverage that might be more affordable than employer-sponsored coverage (Parker, Raleigh News & Observer, 10/7).
  
  
• Open enrollment: Workers during the open enrollment period this fall could find that their employer is offering more plans "stressing healthier lifestyles" and "fewer costly claims," the Baltimore Sun reports. "Companies want to get more employees involved in managing their health care," Scott Ziemba, a senior consultant at Watson Wyatt, said, adding, "Healthy employees equate to lower costs." Such plans could include high-deductible plans, wellness programs and tools to help workers select appropriate coverage (Bigda, Baltimore Sun, 10/7).
  
  
• Questionnaires: Employers and health plans are using health questionnaires to develop health and wellness programs and assess employees' health, according to a report by the Center for Studying Health System Change, the Newark Star-Ledger reports. According to Debra Draper, associate director of the center, "The whole point is to prevent disease development and curb escalating health care costs. You target people who need intervention and try to prevent a catastrophic event." However, Draper said no evidence has shown that such interventions reduce employers' health costs (Campbell, Newark Star-Ledger, 10/9).
  
  
• Wellness programs: Employers looking to reduce health care costs are using health coaches and "attractive wellness benefits" to encourage workers to monitor and improve their health, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reports. Such wellness benefits could include discounts on premiums and employer contributions to health savings accounts, as well as no-cost gym memberships and cholesterol and blood sugar screenings. Although the programs can save companies money, the "challenge is getting employees to use them," the Sun-Sentinel reports (Heroux Pounds, South Florida Sun-Sentinel, 10/7).

Reprinted with kind permission from http://www.kaisernetwork.org. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery at http://www.kaisernetwork.org/dailyreports/healthpolicy. The Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report is published for kaisernetwork.org, a free service of The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation© 2005 Advisory Board Company and Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights reserved.

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