Employers' attitudes toward health care reform changing
A new survey finds widespread support for drug price reform to address the most significant threats to affordability.
The COVID-19 pandemic hasn’t yet had an impact on employers’ health plan strategies, according to a survey by the National Alliance of Healthcare Purchaser Coalitions. The report found 61% of employers will continue with their current strategy in 2021, and 10% are accelerating their strategy. Looking farther ahead, 55% of employers expect to maintain their strategy in 2022, and 8% anticipate acceleration.
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The survey was conducted in August and September among 165 employers around the country.
“Employers are maxed out as to what they and their employees and family members can shoulder for health care costs, and they continue to be concerned about the sustainability of privately sponsored health care,” Michael Thompson, National Alliance president and CEO, said in a statement. “Looking forward, they are working to shift market dynamics to get better value for their health care dollars through delivery-based strategies such as advanced primary care and centers of excellence, and there is also an increasing openness to government action.”
As a matter of fact, a majority of employers are open to health care reforms that bring down the cost of care. Drug prices are an area ripe for reform, as 90% of employers say they represent a significant threat to affordability. Consequently, 94% believe drug price regulation could be at least somewhat helpful in making care more affordable.
Within their own plans, almost half of employers are using medication therapy management to tackle the cost of prescriptions, while roughly one in five are using pass-through pricing. The survey found several areas where employers could use more education regarding drug strategies, especially in using biosimilars (31%) and drug reference-based pricing (28%).
The time to educate is now, as similar percentages of employers said they were considering implementing biosimilars (27%) and drug reference-based pricing (24%) in the next two years.
Other key findings:
- Drug prices aren’t the only threat to affordability. Lack of transparency (73%), hospital prices (71%), surprise medical bills (58%) and overuse of low-value services/waste (53%) were cited as significant threats.
- Employers are receptive to implementing national or regional centers of excellence. With few exceptions, employers with more than 5,000 covered workers either already use COEs or are considering it over the next two years, and over three-quarters of mid-sized employers currently use COEs or are thinking about it. Even the smallest employers are open to the idea, as only about a third outright rejecting it.
- In addition to drug price regulation, employers agreed hospital price transparency (90%), surprise billing regulation (81%) and hospital rate regulation (79%) would be at least somewhat helpful in addressing affordability. Medicare for All was widely rejected with 46% saying it would be harmful, and 22% neutral on the idea.
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