Consumer Directed Healthcare Encourage Cost-Conscious Behaviors
Posted by J.P. Farley Corporation on Wed, Jan 11, 2012
One of the good things about consumer directed health care is that it changes the way people think about medical care and about their health in general. With a traditional health plan, some consumers do not take the opportunity to be involved in making health care decisions and they have little understanding with regard to just how much medical care costs. They may have an idea that certain procedures are expensive or that some prescription drugs cost more than others, but their awareness is not at the level it could be.
People are accustomed to comparison shopping to get the most value when they want to buy items like clothes or electronics. Many are not aware that it is also possible to seek out what you truly want and what will truly benefit you when it comes to health care. With a consumer directed health care plan, participants are asked to become educated consumers and to make informed decisions about health care purchasing.
Statistics have found that behavior counts for half of health plan inflation. This means that employers don’t see costs go up just because people are unhealthy. Costs go up because traditional health plans are set up so employees will spend healthcare dollars rather than see them disappear and, for many participants, don’t create a need to make more cost conscience health decisions. With consumer directed health care, employees have greater control and they benefit because their company spends less on health care.
The Bend, an Oregon newspaper, reported on the Employee Benefit Research Institute's seventh annual "Consumer Engagement in Health Care Survey" commenting that, “The survey found that individuals in these consumer-directed plans “were more likely than those with traditional coverage to exhibit a number of cost-conscious behaviors.” For example, the survey noted, “consumer-directed plan enrollees were more likely to check whether their plan would cover specific care and do cost comparisons before receiving it.”