10/31/2019| by Will Maddox
A
recent Kaiser Family Foundation report showed that health insurance family
premiums rose five percent again this year, topping $20,000 a year for the
first time. Healthcare costs have long been increasing by leaps and bounds,
putting added pressure on families to afford coverage because wages have only
increase 3.4 percent over the same period, but local employers weren’t caught
off guard by the increase and are taking action to keep healthcare spending
down.
The
report says the average worker pays around $6,000 of the $20,000 premium cost,
with employers covering the difference, so the incentive is shared by both
business and employee to reduce spending when possible. The report says that
since 2009, average family premiums have increased 54 percent, while workers
share of the costs increased 71 percent. Inflation has increased just 20
percent and wages 26 percent over the same period.
But for
groups like the Dallas-Fort Worth Business Group on Health, most businesses and
payers are staying below that five percent increase thanks to innovative and evidence based incentives and
education measures for their employee’s benefits. “I’d like to think they are
implementing cost management strategies that others have not done or don’t know
to do,” says Marianne Fazen, Executive Director of the DFWBGH.
Fazen
says that compared to the unpredictable years immediately following the
implementation of the Affordable Care Act, which brought in many formerly
uncovered lives into the health insurance world, an annual five percent
increase is almost good news. Companies can more easily plan for predictable
increases than erratic premium jumps that peaked near 10 percent at times.
The
predictability and savings have come from a number of initiatives on the part
of employers, ranging from higher deductibles that make employees more price
conscience to concierge services that help them find cost saving care.
Higher
deductibles mean that consumers share a higher percentage of care, but
employers are trying to help their employees spend it wisely. The organization
accumulates more data, carriers have tools to find how much procedures will
cost at different facilities, and other online searches like MediBookr improve
transparency in medical costs.
Other
employers are utilizing concierge services, where an employer pays to give
their employees a place to call for any medical issue. The concierge can
develop a relationship with the employee and funnel patients to high value
physicians and facilities, providing significant savings for the employee and
employer, which pays the majority of the medical cost. The savings generated by
such services allow companies to incentivize their employees to use the
concierge by completely paying for the procedure when the concierge is used.
Emphasizing
telehealth appointments with lower copays and steering employees to urgent care
rather than the emergency room are other ways employers are
bringing about cost savings. And for expensive specialty drugs, Fazen says
employers are encouraging their workers to get infusions at home or the
physicians office rather than the hospital, which is much more expensive.
“Employers
are going to continue pulling levers to try and control their costs within each
of their companies,” Fazen says.
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