A recent survey shows that patients, doctors and other healthcare constituents agree that more shared information and aligned incentive programs are key to helping solve the healthcare affordability crisis and that health plans are best positioned to coordinate these improvements.
The study was conducted by TNS Custom Research, a global market information firm based in London. The survey is a cross-constituent study of senior-level health plan employees, employers, brokers, general practitioners, specialists and consumers and was released by the TriZetto Group Inc.
More than 1,700 individuals were queried online regarding healthcare costs, cost management, incentive programs and the availability of information and tools to make healthcare decisions.
According to the survey, 88 percent to 91 percent see some value in a range of online information tools that help anticipate healthcare costs, select benefit packages and receive customer service. Examples of such tools are estimators that consumers can use to determine how much they will pay for treatments or online comparisons of physician and hospital costs and quality. In addition, 78 percent would like employers to offer online reward programs that encourage healthy choices about diet, exercise and tobacco use.
Respondents are also looking at incentive programs to decrease costs, the survey revealed, but these programs will require alignment between consumer, employer and provider.
More than 90 percent of both employers and payers in the survey consider wellness incentives at least somewhat effective in lowering healthcare costs of employees and their families. Between 50 percent and 60 percent of consumers said they would be interested in using a range of incentives.
However, consumers who were surveyed found few opportunities to sign up for wellness programs, with only 6 percent to 18 percent reporting participation in a range of such incentive programs. And 60 percent of employers reported that they have no information systems with which to manage incentive-based programs.
When asked who might best lead the coordination of health benefits and care for the healthcare consumer, payers were most frequently named by all constituent groups.
"Payers have all the benefit plan, cost and treatment information on Americans with health insurance," said Dan Spirek, executive vice president of integrated health solutions and chief solutions officer at TriZetto. "Payers can close these information gaps, bridge these disconnects and drive IHM by leveraging the wealth of health benefits and care information in their systems to engage constituents and align incentives, helping to solve the affordability crisis."
How are you using IT to help cut costs by keeping you and your employees better informed? Do you believe that the initial costs of these systems have a RIO for your company in this area? E-mail Associate Editor Molly Merrill at molly.merrill@medtechpublishing.com.