A recent post-open enrollment survey conducted by HighRoads indicates that employees worry most about the rising cost of healthcare coverage, followed by coverage cancellation and new taxes on healthcare benefits.
The main concern for employers is a lack of federal guidance on what information must be communicated to employees through the enrollment process. This, despite reports that 88 percent of employers have increased their employee communications to address health reform.
"While most employers increased their communications efforts during the fall open enrollment period to communicate changes required by healthcare reform, there are still doubts about how effective those communications were," said Kim Buckey, practice lead for SPD services at HighRoads. "There is clearly an opportunity to do some follow up communications – based on the actual employee elections during open enrollment – or employee sensing (surveys or focus groups) mid-year to determine whether employees truly understood the impact of the year's plan changes."
According to the survey, 25 percent of employers cited concerns about the lack of federal guidance on what health reform requirements are and how any changes during the year should be communicated. The disconnect between cost and existing plans and being able to communicate changes under employee plans were cited by 13 percent of employers, while 12 percent were concerned whether employees would understand any changes and how they would be affected.
In addition to the 50 percent of employees concerned about the rising costs of their insurance coverage, the report noted that 13 percent were concerned with cancellation of their benefits or government taxation of their medical benefits. Another 12 percent were concerned with their ability to add adult children to the policies and 12 percent indicated they had no real concerns about health reform.