A new study presents yet another reason consumer driven health plans might be a better way to go.

Consumers enrolled in CDHPs are more likely to make sustainable, positive behavior change leading to significant health plan spend reductions year over year, according to data from the Health Care Service Corp.

Members who migrated to CDHP plans—those that have a higher deductible, prompting consumers to be more directly involved with the selection and usage of health care services—reduced their health care spending significantly.

The study focused on tracking individual members who migrated from traditional health plan coverage to CDHP coverage in order to analyze their health care behavior and their health care spending habits both before and after the switch. The data also showed that changes in behavior, including increases in preventive care and use of generic prescriptions, helped contribute to a reduction in health care spending for both employers and members.

Those who made the switch to a CDHP:

• were four percent more likely to take advantage of preventive services
• reduced health care utilization by an aggregate of more than 12 percent
• were 10 percent more likely to fill their prescriptions with generics
• spent 24 percent less on inpatient hospital services and eight percent less on outpatient services
• had a 12 percent decrease in emergency room visits
• reduced combined medical and pharmacy spend by an aggregate of 11 percent

Additionally, employers who offered only a CDHP saw even greater spend reductions—up to an aggregate of 14.4 percent over the three years following migration from a traditional plan to a CDHP.