CIGNA: Health Account Plans Hold Down Costs

Cost trends were down 20% for health account plan members with diabetes, 18% for health account plan members with high blood pressure, and 13% for all health account plan members, the researchers report.

Health account plan members received care that was similar to the care that members of traditional health plans received, suggesting that the cost trend reduction had more to do with better chronic disease management than with individuals doing without needed care, the researchers contend.

The researchers note that they excluded catastrophic claims in excess of $50,000 from the study, to reduce the effects of random variations within smaller sets of data on the study results.