Benefits, Consumerism and an "Ownership Society”
by Patricia Wiley and Duane Olson
Compared to the generations preceding them, baby boomers assume more of both decision-making and financial responsibility for their health care and retirement. This article reviews the changing health and retirement plan landscape, and describes the plans, products and features available to the baby boom generation. It then describes how employers can become educators in order to help boomers' best manage their increased responsibility for their health care and retirement.
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Consumer-Driven Health Care: Lessons from the First Five Years
by Bill Sharon and Toni Donahue
Lessons learned from the past five years' growth of the consumer-driven health movement bodes well for its longevity in the marketplace. The authors of this article review the results achieved by early adopters of consumer-driven health initiatives and the success strategies they've used in the areas of plan design, pricing, integration with wellness initiatives, communication and vendor selection. They conclude with a case example of how a transportation service company experienced substantial consumer-driven health plan enrollment and achieved a significant number of the key predictive success steps along the way.
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Employer-Driven Consumerism: Integrating Health Into the Business Model
by Michael Thompson and Joseph Checkley
Consumer-driven health care is a misnomer. Notwithstanding the enormous role the individual consumer has to play in reshaping the U.S. health care delivery system, this article will focus on the employer as the key driver of change and innovation in the consumerism revolution. American Standard provides a case study of how one major employer has evaluated health care in the context of its business and aggressively integrated consumerism and health into the core of its business. Other companies will appropriately execute consumerism strategies in a fashion consistent with their own needs, culture, resources and populations. However, the principles supporting those strategies will be very much consistent.
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Information Access Will Make or Break Consumer-Driven Health Plans
by Bruce Kelley and Mark Attridge
Consumer-driven health plans offer employers potentially significant cost-savings. Yet such potential cannot be realized without greater consumer access to price, quality and treatment information. This article describes why consumer- based strategies have taken hold and how consumer-driven plan design and financial incentives are of only limited value in controlling costs. After reviewing the importance and availability of existing health care information, the authors suggest actions employers can take to ensure consumer-driven plans reach their potential.
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Account-Based Plans Can Curb Costs and Engage Employees
by Dave Osterndorf
A growing number of organizations are combining consumer-driven health plans with account-based approaches in order to limit health benefit costs, reinforce key consumerist messages and provide meaningful benefits to both actives and retirees. This article describes how account-based approaches work and can be used to motivate employees to invest in their health today and salt away funds for tomorrow. The authors describe what employers can do ensure that consumer-driven health plans and account-based approaches help employees accomplish their goals.
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Consumerism's Sea Change: How It Will Affect Your Company in the Coming Years
by Sander Domaszewicz
Consumerism and care management are the cost-containment strategies most employers say they will focus on over the next five years. This article reviews the growth of these strategies and the different ways employers have implemented them. The author then delineates the ten key ways that consumerism may affect companies over the next five- to ten-year time period, as these strategies continue to move health benefits toward greater transparency, flexibility and accountability.
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