Employers are beginning to insist health care providers make available cost and quality information that will help them make better-informed health care buying decisions, a new study concludes.
Close to 80% of employers want much better information from providers. The vast majority also want the federal government to require hospitals, physicians, insurers and health plans to disclose publicly all cost and quality information, according to the study by United Benefit Advisors LLC, Indianapolis, an alliance of employee benefit brokers.
Employers also want employees to become more involved in demanding better quality care, says Robert Lindberg, a principal of Lindberg & Ripple Inc., Windsor, Conn., a member of UBA.
Once they're more aware of high health care costs, "employees are not going to want to go back [to a health care provider] more than they have to," Lindberg says. "They will want their first treatment to be more effective."
One surprising finding of the survey was the unexpectedly low acceptance of consumer-driven health plans, notes Robert Lindberg's partner and brother, William.
Only 1.9% of 8,700 employers covered by the survey offered such plans, which are high-deductible plans offered in conjunction with health care savings accounts.
That figure ranges from a high of 3.4% of plans in the North Central region of the United States to a low of less than 1% in the Northeast.
