Employers are also contributing more to their workers' health savings accounts. Employer contributions to individual and family HSAs will both increase by an average of 9 percent, to $571 and $1,138, respectively.

Employers can't do much, however, to rein in the rapidly increasing cost of specialty drugs and employees will naturally bear part of the brunt. The average copay for a month's prescription of a specialty medication has risen 31 percent, from $74 to $97.

Kim Buckey, vice president of client services for DirectPath, tells BenefitsPRO that most of the study's findings were not surprising.

It confirms the growing realization among employers, she says, that high deductible plans are not a "silver bullet" and the cost savings achieved through HDHPs "may come back to bite them further down the line" if employees are forgoing necessary medical care due to cost.

Employers, she adds, could make things better by at least ensuring that their employees understand how their plan works.

"The lack of understanding employees have about these plans is just staggering to me," she says. Some employees, for instance, mistakenly believe their deductible is the amount they must pay for every visit to the doctor.

The good news is more than half of the health plans examined include some type of "price transparency" tool to help employees better-understand what their insurance gets them and for how much.

The report also shows an increase in the use of wellness programs, rising from 50 percent to 58 percent of all employer insurance plans.

The rise in wellness programs is coupled with a decrease in surcharges for tobacco use, a fact that Buckley suggested was evidence that employers are increasingly embracing the carrot over the stick approach to getting employees to quit smoking.

Buckley says due to uncertainty in Washington surrounding the future of health care policy, the country may be looking at another year or two of "not much change" when it comes to plan design.

However, she notes, if the Affordable Care Act is ultimately repealed and replaced, and particularly if whatever comes after it includes an elimination or a reduction in the tax exemption for employer health plans, things could change dramatically.