HDHPs, Wellness Programs Losing Luster as Employee Health Care Remedies

A study has found significant wellness incentives and high-deductible health plans (HDHPs) are becoming less popular as employee healthcare cost fixes, reports Workforce . HDHPs currently represent just 30 percent of medical plans offered by employers. "Increasingly, employers are realizing that true, long-term cost management will come from a combination of tools and that they need to enlist employees in the effort in a meaningful way," says DirectPath's Kim Buckey. She notes wellness programs and private exchanges could yield short-term relief but not singlehandedly address the challenge. Meanwhile, the HDHP option has failed to resolve employees' lack of health literacy and health insurance comprehension. About 31 percent of employers offer wellness incentives today, compared to 58 percent in 2017. "That was surprising because using incentives to drive employee behavior was a big component of most companies' strategies across the past couple years," says Gartner's Brian Kropp. "What companies are finding in a lot of cases is that the incentives were most likely used by healthiest people whose healthcare costs were already quite low." The study also suggests the erosion of incentive use may be partly explained by concerns about the future legality of such plans, as a federal judge ruled last year that the EEOC's incentive rules will expire at the end of 2018.