Employer Surveys Project 2018 Cost Increases in the Five Percent Range

by Clive Riddle, August 11, 2017 The National Business Group on Health has released results from their Large Employers’ 2018 Health Care Strategy and Plan Design Survey, which projects the total employer cost of providing medical and pharmacy benefits to rise 5% for the fifth consecutive year in 2018. The total cost of health care is estimated to be $13,482 per employee in 2017, and is projected to increase to $14,156 in 2018, with employers funding 70% of these costs. What is driving cost increases? The most often listed top driver was specialty pharmacy (26%) and 80% of employers ranked this among the top three cost drivers. Similarly, last week Willis Towers Watson released preliminary findings from their 22nd annual Best Practices in Health Care Employer Survey, which found that "Employers expect health care costs to increase by 5.5%* in 2018, up from a 4.6% increase in 2017." The NBGH 2018 survey also produced this grab-bag of interesting employer survey responses regarding health benefit strategies, regarding telehealth, onsite care, value based care, and CDHP: ·         96% will make telehealth services available in states where it is allowed next year ·         56% plan to offer telehealth for behavioral health services ·         20% of employers are experiencing employee telehealth utilization rates of 8% or higher ·         21%s plan to promote ACOs in 2018, and another 26% are considering offering them        ·         54% will offer onsite or near site health centers in 2018         ·         88% expect to use Centers of Excellence in 2018 for certain procedures         ·         40% of employers have incorporated some type of value-based benefit design ·         18% will use value-based benefit design to steer employees toward telehealth in 2018 (16% in 2017) ·         66% of companies will offer medical decision support and second opinion services in 2018 ·         90% will offer at least one Consumer Directed Health Plan (CDHP) in 2018. ·         40% of employers will offer a CDHP as the only plan option in 2018, compared with 35% this year ·         28% pair a HDHP with a Health Reimbursement Arrangement