With an eye on both their employees' health and their bottom line, employer plans are rapidly embracing value-based health care. This outcome-driven, consumer-centered approach focuses not on the dollars being spent, but on how the dollars being spent can improve employees' health (and keeping them healthy).
In the last year, the number of multiemployer and public employer plans that consider their health and wellness offerings to be a part of a broader VBHC strategy more than doubled from 16 percent to 37 percent, says a new survey released by the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans.
"As employers strive to reduce their health care costs there has been an increasing interest in value-based health care," says Sally Natchek, senior research director at the International Foundation. Most organizations are just beginning to "take steps to provide the highest quality of health care for their dollars."
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When asked their current status regarding value-based health care, 15 percent of health care plans report they have just begun VBHC efforts and 23 percent say they have scattered initiatives. Just 3 percent say they've achieved a culture of health by integrating and evaluating their programs as part of an advanced VBHC strategy.
Similar to 2010, the number of health plans offering wellness initiatives remains strong at about three in five (63 percent), with public employers more likely to support these programs. The most prevalent initiatives are health screenings (76 percent), flu shots (75 percent), smoking-cessation programs (64 percent) and health risk assessments (59 percent). Many also offer fitness or nutrition programs such as weight loss support (34 percent), wellness competitions (31 percent) and nutrition counseling (27 percent).
Half of the health care plans surveyed report the utilization of a disease management program—and those offering wellness initiatives are more than twice as likely to offer these programs. The two most frequently targeted conditions for disease management—diabetes (88 percent) and heart disease (77 percent)—are also cited as the conditions having the most impact on productivity and health care costs. Obesity, currently targeted by 43 percent of organizations, is the top concern that health plans aim to address in the future.
But many organizations don't have strategies in place to educate workers on taking responsibility for their own health. Under half (at 44 percent) make price information on prescription drugs available, 21 percent provide information on the cost of hospital services and 17 percent on the cost of physicians services. Even fewer provide information on the quality and safety of hospitals, and the quality of physicians (15 percent and 12 percent, respectively).
"Ideally a value-based health care strategy encourages each worker to take primary responsibility for their personal health and to be a wise consumer of health care services," Natchek says. "To accomplish this goal, organizations need to focus on educating participants—stepping up both communication and education efforts."
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