Here are more details on three top trends, according to the organization:

1. Health care costs are growing at historic rates, an impetus for change.

Employers, which have long prioritized cost management, affordability, quality, and outcomes, will heighten their focus in 2025 to address climbing health care costs. For many companies, health care costs in 2023 were higher than anticipated, and cost increases are projected to be higher in 2024 and 2025 than they have been in more than a decade. As a result, Business Group on Health officials say, employers will need to make tough decisions, some of them disruptive — including re-evaluating and possibly disengaging from long-standing partnerships. Near-term disruption may ultimately result in long-term improvements in health care costs and quality, as well as patient experience.

2. Employers will hold vendor partners to higher standards.

Employers will both reassess and streamline their vendor partnerships in the coming year and hold vendors to a higher level of accountability for producing outcomes. To do this, accessible vendor data on cost transparency, quality, and outcomes will be critical to informed employer decision-making. What's more, employers will explore alternative approaches, including directly contracting with centers of excellence, promoting network arrangements that steer employees toward high-value providers, and looking to emerging copayment-based models to address affordability.

Instant Insights /

Employers brace for rising health care costs and political changes in the New Year

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