Lowering Employee Health Care Costs can Lower Business
Costs
November 11, 2008 (PLANSPONSOR.com) - The Midwest
Business Group on Health (MGBH) says value-based benefit
design leads to healthier, more productive employees and
lower long-term costs to employers.
Value-Based Benefit Design entails reducing the
cost of effective health care providers, services,
procedures, treatments or drugs to encourage employees to
do such things as take their prescribed regular
medications or visit better performing, more efficient
doctors and hospitals. The payoff comes in the form of
healthier employees, with fewer tests, fewer
complications from surgery and fewer hospital
readmissions, the coalition said in a press
release.
To offset the lowered employee costs, employers can
raise costs for lower quality, less effective providers,
services, procedures, treatments or drugs.
Higher Cost Equals Higher Quality?
However, to implement this value-based benefit
design, employers need to reframe employees' perceptions
of the health care marketplace. According to the press
release, the findings of employee focus group research by
MGBH indicate employees perceive higher quality health
care equals higher cost.
In addition, the research found employees want
choices in employer-sponsored benefit and wellness
programs and are skeptical of employer efforts to steer
them either toward or away from a particular program or
provider.
MGBH says monetary incentives alone will not get
employees to participate in value-based benefit design
programs. Programs need to be combined with peer
persuasion and management support to encourage both
initial and ongoing participation, and employees need to
see that incentives are in place because employers really
do care about their health and that the incentives make
sense.
MBGH has released a white paper on the focus group
research, The Employees Readiness to Adopt Value-Based
Benefit Design Strategies. The paper can be accessed from
http://www.mbgh.org/index.php?t=initiatives/Readiness&
.
Rebecca Moore
editors@plansponsor.com