Employers interested in using employer plans to pare down unnecessary healthcare costs could draw some encouragement from a report highlighting what a handful of companies achieved by rolling out these plans. The report Driving Innovation in the Health Care Marketplace by Business Roundtable seeks to show what happens when employers can make use of greater access to healthcare price transparency tools and telemedicine and change the way their employees manage their health.
But for all the talk of transparency, there was one figure that was frequently missing from CEO descriptions of their company’s progress: the number of participants.
I’ve highlighted what some of the companies have achieved and are planning to do.
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Accenture distributed nearly $3 million in wellness incentives to employees last year. Doubled participation in health-coaching program, with more than 15,000 people participating
Boeing used Best Doctors, a telemedicine company, as a second-opinion service. Some of its 450,000 employees used the service and 33 percent had a change in diagnosis, and 70 percent experienced a change in treatment. The one critical number they didn’t bother disclosing was how many participated, so it’s a bit tough to assess its worth.
Caesars Entertainment plans to use MD Live by the end of the year to help employees access after-hours care as part of their benefit plans.
CBRE started its “invest in you” program that boasts an annual participation of 7,000. The company initiated a program in 2013 and 2014, that gave employees a way to earn up to a $600 annual medical premium reduction based on the results of biometric screenings and well-being assessments. If identified as high risk, employees were offered health coaching sessions which, when completed, would
allow them to earn the full premium reduction. Sixty percent of these high-risk employees took advantage of health coaching.
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Comcast plans to roll out a Web-based transparency tool to employees to allow them to compare medical providers’ practice histories, outcomes and costs before treatment or diagnostic decisions are made. It’s also piloting a direct primary care model with Qliance in Seattle. In exchange for a monthly fee, the practice provides patient care with a decreased panel size and fewer patients per day.
DaVita was among the few companies that actually disclosed participation figures, albeit in one healthy living challenge. The company holds annual challenges that track exercise minutes and how many fruits and produce participants have in each meal. Its CEO Kent Thiry said program participation has increased from 580 participants in 2008 to more than 5,300 in 2013.
DuPont added Castlight Health as part of an incentive program to its wellness program.
FedEx initiated a multimedia education program for its 200,000 employees that included examples of how they could cut costs. Visits to its enrollment site rose 22 percent and use of online cost-estimator and comparison tools rose 42 percent. More than 17 percent changed plan options based on additional research.
Mass Mutual saw 80 percent of employees spend less on healthcare costs through its health and wellness plan in 2011. It had claims savings of 6 percent per employee and shared half of the savings with employees as a one-time health care dividend into their health savings accounts.
Medtronic said when it came time to revise its health plan, it didn’t want to simply shift costs to employees. It made strategic changes to its plans and eliminated high-cost and under-used plans. It strengthened its high-deductible health plan to include lower premiums, a $20 co-pay for office visits and enhanced pharmacy benefits. The changes nearly doubled plan participation, according to the company.
Employees who complete the annual heath risk questionnaire pay $600 less for medical premiums. When they complete health-related tasks, they can also earn incentive points, which can be redeemed for products.
Verizon introduced an employee health portal called WellConnect portal. It gives personalized health information, interactive online tools, mobile apps, a video library and healthy living tips. It reported that the program helped employees make substantial changes to improve their health. From 2010 to 2012, 78 percent of employees with high blood pressure had lowered it, 45 percent with high glucose no longer had it in 2012 and employees shed 85,000 pounds in the same time frame.
