Employee Education and Intranets Play Central Role in Shift to Consumer-Directed Health Care

As more U.S. companies embrace health care consumerism to help stem rising costs, they are placing far more emphasis on employee education and the technologies that facilitate better employee decision making, according to experts and research from Watson Wyatt Worldwide.

A recent survey of more than 550 large employers by Watson Wyatt and the National Business Group on Health shows a sharp increase in the number of companies providing detailed information to help employees become better health care consumers:

Percent of Employers Providing
Employees with Information on:

Specific Health Issues
2003 38%
2004 42%
2005 71%

Provider and/or Hospital Quality
2003 16%
2004 23%
2005 35%

Health Care Service Unit Price
2003 4%
2004 11%
2005 20%

Not only are companies providing more health care information to workers, they are changing how they provide that information, says Tripp. While traditional print communication is still important, company portals have become the health care information hub for workers at many large employers. And these portals, especially when supported by useful tools, can be very effective. Workers who access health plan information from their employers’ intranets have a better understanding of health care costs and available services.

With the advent of health savings accounts (HSAs), employees also have a far greater need for sophisticated financial analyses of their health plan choices. In the recent Watson Wyatt/National Business Group on Health report, 28 percent of employers now say they offer tax-impact modeling via the Web and 18 percent offer utilization-based modeling to help employees compare plan choices given their likely health care needs.

But even as employers go down the path toward consumer-directed health care, they realize the amount of effort that will be required. For example, in the Watson Wyatt/National Business Group on Health report, employers cited several challenges relating to HSAs. Eighty percent of companies expressed concern about the need for increased health education and 54 percent expressed concern with the technology requirements.

The shift to consumer-directed health care wonít be easy, but is a process that can be managed, says Tripp. In the end, consumer-directed health care is all about personalization of information, and the Web can deliver that efficiently, affordably and successfully.

Source: HRmarketer.com