Consumer-driven health plans grow slowly

Analysts say people still do not fully understand the high-deductible plans.

By Pamela Lewis Dolan, AMNews staff. April 16, 2007.

More employers are offering consumer-driven health plans, but employees have been slow to embrace them, according to a recently released study.

Watson Wyatt Worldwide and the National Business Group on Health recently released its annual health plan survey which found 38% of employers were offering CDHPs, but enrollment in those plans is only 8%, just one percentage point more than a year ago.

CDHP is a catch-all term that refers to plans such as health savings accounts, or any other insurance plan that requires consumers to take a more active role in managing their own health costs.

Because enrollment in CDHPs has been low, some companies have offered employees financial incentives for enrolling.

The survey found the companies with the highest percentage of enrollees were 17% more likely to offer incentives. Five percent of large employers are offering CDHPs as the only health plan option.

"Most [CDHPs] have high deductibles, and no one who has an alternative is necessarily going to choose a high deductible if they already have a low deductible," said Helen Darling, who is president of the National Business Group on Health, an employers' consortium.

And the fact that most consumer-driven health plans are associated with health savings accounts has not helped, she said. Health savings accounts allow consumers to put aside, tax-free, money toward their health care costs.

"We know employees like things simple and they don't like change. Many aren't willing to make any effort to learn," Darling said.