Between improving healthcare literacy and explaining how a benefit plan works, self-insured employers offer their covered lives an opportunity to make more informed choices about the care they purchase from providers and facilities. UMR's GenerationYou serves as the technology engine for helping accomplish this often elusive objective during open enrollment. It also enables consumers to answer that age-old question: what's in it for me?
Most studies suggest that influencing behavior change upfront can substantially reduce the cost of care for health plan members and sponsors, according to Bart Halling, VP, product management – consumer directed health and emerging markets at UMR, a UnitedHealthcare Company. One conservative estimate shows that consumers save more than $700 annually on average. The key to doing so is when more educated decisions are made around the wild variation of cost and quality. In this podcast, Halling explains that when members use decision support tools and choose providers that follow evidence-based protocols, UMR's internal data shows they save more than 36 percent compared with those who aren't engaged upfront.
The aim of GenerationYou, along with URM's CarePrepare program, is to help health plan members make better decisions about their care and reward them for doing so, which Halling says can be applied toward reducing the cost of treatment. The focus is on having wide access to provider choice, strong options around high-quality care and a wide variability on the cost of care that's plannable and shoppable. Members can talk through their care options upfront in 16 different core categories.
To listen to more Say Hello To A Next-Generation Benefits Solution podcasts, click here.
To learn more about GenerationYou, contact UMR.
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Bruce Shutan
Bruce Shutan is a Portland, Oregon freelance writer who has written about the employee benefits space for more than 100 publications or corporate entities for 32 of his 37 years in journalism. He also has been quoted about benefit trends in The Wall Street Journal’s interactive edition and syndicated radio program on work-life issues, Reuters and other media outlets.
