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Co-pay hikes create burdens for patients, physicians

A survey finds that employers are looking at higher-deductible plans and other cost-shifting options to combat higher health plan bills.

By Julie A. Jacob, amednews staff. Jan. 7, 2002.

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Collecting payment from patients may become more critical to the financial health of physician practices.

That's because higher co-payments and deductibles, along with personal health care spending accounts, are among the strategies that employers said they are using to minimize the impact of another year of double-digit hikes in premiums.

Employer health care costs, which rose 8.1% in 2000 and 11.2% last year, are projected to jump 12.7% in 2002, according to the William M. Mercer "2001 National Survey of Employer-sponsored Health Plans," a survey of more than 2,800 employers across the nation regarding their employee health care benefits. The average cost of health care benefits for employees increased from $4,430 per employee in 2000 to $4,924 per employee last year. Costs for HMOs rose just as much as for PPOs, while costs for point-of-service plans rose slightly more.

For physicians, employer attempts to shift more costs to employees through higher deductibles and premiums means that they will be responsible for collecting even more money from their patients, said Blaine Bos, a Mercer principal, who noted that the average in-network deductible for PPO plans offered by small employers jumped from $250 to $500 last year.

Seventeen percent of small employers have PPOs with in-network deductibles of $1,000 or more.

"Doctors are going to have to pay a lot more attention to the business side," said Bos.

The double-digit increase in employer health care costs last year was caused in part by the aging of the baby boomers, increased negotiation leverage of physicians and hospitals and rising prescription drug costs, said Bos. [...]