Public supports lower premiums for healthy lifestyles
A majority of Americans support higher health insurance premiums, deductibles and copayments for people engaged in unhealthy behaviors, such as smoking, overeating and being sedentary, reveals a recent survey from the Wall Street Journal and Harris Interactive. The new numbers reveal a shift in attitudes among health-conscious adults towards individuals with unhealthy habits.
Roughly 53% of U.S. adults feel it's fair to ask people with unhealthy lifestyles to pay higher premiums than people with healthier lifestyles, up from 37% in 2003, while 32% consider that unfair, down from 46% in 2003. Similarly, 53% of U.S. adults agree it's fair to charge people with unhealthy lifestyles higher deductibles and copays, up from 36% in 2003, while 30% state that is unfair, down from 47% in 2003. A healthy lifestyle was described as exercising regularly, eating healthy foods and not smoking.
“As health care costs continue to rise, more consumers can see the logic of giving employees who make healthier choices a break," says John Shull, chief executive of Tennessee-based Gordian Health Solutions, a disease management firm. “Most chronic illnesses are tied to lifestyle-driven choices, such as poor diet, lack of exercise or smoking. When offered a choice of lower health care premiums, along with the programs and health coaching to help them succeed in living a healthier life, employees have all the right reasons to make changes.”
Article provided by BenefitNews - July 25, 2006
More Health Plans Revealing Treatment Prices
About 40% of health plans tell patients the price of health care services, showing a continuing trend toward cost and quality transparency, according to a survey from the National Business Coalition on Health.
“As more and more employers move towards consumer-driven health care, they need to know how to trade off costs between doctors and spend responsibly,” says Dennis White, senior vice president of value-based purchasing for NBCH.
Health plans are increasingly providing practitioner-specific cost information, with 7% of them putting the information online for patients. White says the growth of health care consumerism is causing an increase in patient responsibility and interest in weighing costs. Health insurers are starting to aggregate data about doctors and hospitals, especially concerning high-cost and high-risk procedures, in order to make the information more usable.
Additionally, more health plans are collaborating to release community report cards. About 36% of health plans are pooling data with one or more health care providers in order to measure and report performance information to the public, NBCH finds. Based on this performance data, 23% of health plans have organized practitioners into tiered networks. “Tiered networks distinguish performance of doctors and hospitals, based on things like economics and quality of treatment,” says White.
Companies can use this performance information to change their health plan design and encourage employees to use higher-quality doctors. Meanwhile, 28% of health plans reported giving periodic financial rewards to outstanding doctors and hospitals.
Article provided by BenefitNews.com 7-27-06
Employers Are Moving Away From Traditional Benefit Plans According To A Recent Eastbridge Study
Employers are moving away from traditional benefit plans according to a recent Eastbridge study.
Changes in the healthcare and insurance industry have been building for many years. Employers are seeking to control their benefit costs and are shifting more decisions as well as more of the cost to employees. Employers are moving towards defined contribution benefits and towards more voluntary employee-pay-all benefits (as opposed to employer-funded benefits).
In a recent survey of voluntary insurance carriers, the respondents were convinced that employers and employees are more interested today in products that cover the deductibles and out-of-pocket expenses associated with health care than they were in the past. Eighty-five percent of those surveyed agreed or strongly agreed, up from 65 percent in 2002.
"We're also seeing a migration from employer-paid benefits to voluntary benefits," remarks Gil Lowerre, president of Eastbridge. "Three-fourths of the carriers surveyed say they are seeing an increase in voluntary coverages that were previously fully or partially employer paid." Only 10 percent of those surveyed did not recognize this trend.
This article was provided by Business Wire Inc. July 18th, 2006.
Medication Errors Harming Millions, Report Says
At least 1.5 million Americans are sickened, injured or killed each year by errors in prescribing, dispensing and taking medications, the influential Institute of Medicine concluded in a major report released yesterday.
Mistakes in giving drugs are so prevalent in hospitals that, on average, a patient will be subjected to a medication error each day he or she occupies a hospital bed, the report by a panel of experts said.
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washingtonpost.com.
Savings Ahead In Generic Medicines
Consumers stand to save billions of dollars in prescription drug costs in the next few years as an unprecedented wave of expensive brand-name medications come off patent, facing competition from far-cheaper generic versions.
Four of the nation's 10 best-selling prescription medicines — treating common ailments ranging from high cholesterol to asthma — are due to lose patent protection starting this year through 2010. Never have so many branded drugs, with annual sales of as much as $75 billion, lost their patents in so short a time, experts say.
The savings for consumers could be enormous. Unlike hospital or doctor care, which is expensive but paid mostly by health insurance, patients pay a relatively higher share of prescription drug costs out of their own pockets.
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latimes.com.
Employers Increase Wellness Push With New Programs, Incentives
Wellness programs and employee wellness incentives continue to gain in popularity in the wake of unrelenting spikes in medical costs for businesses and patients.
Seventy-five percent of employers now offer a wellness program, according to the Hay Group, a Philadelphia-based consulting firm that recently surveyed 435 employers, up from 73% a year ago. Wellness programs are almost as common as disease management and employee assistance programs; 90% of companies provide a DM program and 81% offer an EAP, Hay reports.
Wellness programs aim to reduce benefits costs through sustained improvements in workforce health. Michael Carter, vice president at Hay, comments, "This is a long-term strategy. It's not something you do to get a huge ROI in 2007. It makes sense from an economic view, and it ultimately benefits the employee."
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Employee Benefit News.
CDHP Users Get More Preventive, Less Acute Care
Consumer-driven health plan members seek more preventive care and less acute care than patients enrolled in preferred provider organizations, a UnitedHealth Group study reveals.
The study compared cost and utilization trends among 40,000 people in high-deductible plans connected to health reimbursement accounts to data from 15,000 people in PPOs between 2003 and 2005. About 5% more CDHP members sought preventive care, compared to PPO enrollees, during each of the three years.
Hospital admissions and emergency room visits fell among CDHP users annually, but increased among PPO users. Chronically ill CDHP enrollees reduced their use of acute care, but continued to visit their primary care physician at the same rate as their peers in traditional plans. Cost per member fell 3% to 5% among CDHP users, but rose 8% to 10% among PPO participants, compared to the 2003 baseline.
The results are "not yet conclusive," admits Mike Tarino, CEO of Definity Health, a UnitedHealth Group company, but they support anecdotal reports that CDHPs can lower costs and boost health care outcomes.
CDHPs can reduce cost-sharing for patients who spend the least and the most on health care, but increase cost-sharing for those who fall in the midrange, according to a new
study published in Health Affairs. With HSA contributions shielded from federal and state income taxes, very healthy people would have lower cost-sharing under a CDHP than under a comprehensive plan. Those with medical expenses between $700 and $2,500 per year would see an increase in cost-sharing. PricewaterhouseCoopers healthcare expert Mike Thompson says HSAs have the most influence on low-cost, high-frequency items like office visits and prescriptions.
This article was published by BenefitNews, July 13, 2006
Disease Prevention Focus Requires New Thinking On Drugs
In tandem with the consumer-driven health care groundswell, disease prevention is getting a boost in coverage and attention from employers and health care insurers. However, when it comes to drugs, what's preventive isn't always cut and dried.
Express Scripts, Aetna and other providers have lists of what they consider preventive drugs that qualify for coverage before the deductible in a health savings account, based on guidance from the Treasury Department and the IRS. These medications are designed to avert everything from heart attacks and strokes to bone fractures and cancer.
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Disease Prevention.
IBM Holistic Approach Encouraging Healthy Lifestyles
IBM has molded a healthier workforce by offering three types of incentives at $150 each to promote preventive care, exercise and nonsmoking lifestyles.
The newest incentive, launched this year, encourages employees to complete an online health risk assessment and identify the preventive care visits and exams they need, such as a Pap smear or colonoscopy. About 63,000 of IBM's 140,000 workers have done so this year.
Workers also receive an incentive for doing 30 minutes of exercise four days per week for 10 out of 12 weeks. They log their activities on an online fitness center, where they can set workout goals, interact with fitness professionals and receive Web-based coaching to examine the individual's motivators and impediments to exercise. About 64,000 earned the exercise reward last year.
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Benefitnews.com.
When Your Boss Says Jump
Mike Bowling, a network administrator at Discovery Communications, spends a typical day at his Silver Spring, Md., office troubleshooting E-mail systems, restoring data, maintaining network security--and crunching out dozens of push-ups and sit-ups. He and his fellow competitors in the company's fourth annual Body Challenge meet after hours for "Boot Camp" class with "the Sarge," who pummels them into shape during an hour of calisthenics, weight training, and running. "I could only do about 10 sit-ups and 20 push-ups last month, but now we're doing 70 to 100 push-ups in every class and about 150 sit-ups," says Bowling, 35, who is also running wind sprints for the first time since high school. He's down 13 pounds since January.
As the cost of employee healthcare grows by 10 percent or more each year, corporate America is instituting preventive measures: everything from Pilates class to belly dancing to lavishly equipped gyms. "We are trying to do whatever we can to encourage employees to stay healthy," says Evelyne Steward, vice president of Discovery's LifeWorks department, whose wellness program consists of health and nutrition classes, weight-loss groups, and an on-site clinic as well as the eight-week-long Body Challenge.
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U.S. News and World Report.
