Paying More For Good Care May Cut Total Costs

Efforts to share costs and financial risk with employers turned out to have little correlation with success at holding down health coverage costs, survey team researchers report.

About 29% of the employers surveyed offer health savings accounts, health reimbursement arrangements or both, up from 7% in 2004, and 59% of the employers surveyed agree that personal health accounts may be effective or somewhat effective at controlling health care cost increases.

But the companies in the top 25% in terms of cost containment also made serious efforts to improve the quality of the health care that their employees received, researchers report.

The top performers were 32% more likely than the bottom performers to pay higher rates to higher-quality health care providers or make other efforts to focus on quality of care, the researchers say.

The top performers were also 24% more likely to have condition management programs and other programs that help employees manage their own health, and they were 16% more likely to provide incentives to use health care services appropriately.