CONSUMER-DIRECTED HEALTH CARE

Consumer-Directed Healthcare

Abstract

This article reviews employers' attempts to address the cost and accessibility of health care for their employees and the effect these efforts have had on U.S. Many employers are considering consumer-driven health care programes as an alternative to organized care programs to both control health care costs and improve employee satisfaction. Such programes differ from fee-for-service and organized care models in terms of the economic alignment of the parties. Consumer-driven programs align the employer's economic interest with the employee/patient, and minimize health benefit costs by providing information, tools, and direct economic incentives to employees for self-management of health care dollars. Because these incentives are devised to minimize the consumption of services, providers are the party left out of economic alignment under the consumer-driven model.

Analyzing Consumer-Directed Healthcare

Definition of Consumer-Driven Health Care

With the ever increasing cost of healthcare, employers are constantly faced with the task of finding innovative ways of providing affordable health coverage for their employees. In 2004, a new concept in healthcare began to gain momentum. Consumer Driven Health Plans (CDHPs) also known as High Deductible Health Plans (HDHPs) began to spring up in companies as low-cost offerings to employees. The concept of these plans is to offer health coverage with a high deductible at an affordable premium rate for both employees and employers. In addition, members who elected high-deductible health plans can take advantage of a health savings account (Cleveland 2002). A health savings account allows members to save pre-tax dollars to pay for medical expenses. Companies who offer these plans used the theme of "consumerism" to help educate employees on the complexity of the plan design. The assumption of the health program is to employ medical care advisably and sensibly. With the high deductibles, members are encouraged to shop around for the best rates in medical care. My company first offered a HDHP in 2005. In the human resources journal, Workforce Management Online, (www.rand.org) Charlotte Huff describes the challenges employees are facing when trying to obtain information to help make them better healthcare shoppers.

Intention behind Consumer-Driven Health Care

This synopsis examines the purpose of that study, the parties involved, and the methodology used to gather the information. Now that CDHPs and HDHPs have been offered for the past two years, issues have arisen regarding consumerism and member access to competitive pricing and quality of care information. Employers are finding that employees are not happy with the education they are receiving to help make them better consumers when it comes to healthcare (Gunsauley 2002). As a result, many employers are turning to market research firms to help identify the underlying issue of the lack of education. The results of recent studies show that education is a small part of the problem. The more prominent concern is the deficiency of educational sources.

The purpose of the research was to gain insights into the issues facing members covered by HDHPs. Moreover, the research was conducted to determine if "consumerism" was indeed becoming widespread among HDHP ...