WASHINGTON, March 17 (UPI) -- More employers are offering consumer-driven healthcare plans, but they are not necessarily curbing costs, a new survey says.
The number of employers offering a high-deductible health plan with a health savings account or health reimbursement account is increasing, according to a survey of 585 mid-sized and large companies conducted by the Watson Wyatt Worldwide consulting firm and the National Business Group on Health.
Twenty-nine percent of employers now offer such plans, and another 33 percent said they plan to do so in 2007, an significant increase over two years ago, when fewer than one in 10 companies offered a high-deductible plan, the survey said.
Median employee enrollment in high-deductible plans, which are usually offered as an option to employees, is currently 7 percent.
However, businesses that adopt consumer-driven plans do not necessarily realize healthcare savings, the survey says.
Overall, 80 percent of employers said they find consumer-driven health plans to be at least somewhat effective at increasing employee involvement in health care decision making, but significantly fewer -- 59 percent -- said such plans were somewhat effective at controlling health care cost increases.
The best-performing companies kept cost increases to just 3 percent over the two-year period studied.
Conversely, poor-performing companies experienced an 11.5-percent increase. The median two-year cost increase for all companies was 8 percent.
"This is not surprising," said Helen Darling, president of the National Business Group on Health "given the complexity of the health system and how many cost-driving forces exist in health care."
"Employers should not focus on employee accountability alone," she said. "When used in combination with promoting quality care, health management, use of data and appropriate use of care, companies are able to achieve significantly lower cost trends."
