February 2007
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Main Article
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Sidebar: Consumer-Directed Health Plans Breeding Savvier Patients
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Sidebar: Consumer-Directed Health Plans Breeding Savvier Patients
Consumer-directed health plans (CDHPs) economically incentivize their members to take a more active role in understanding, selecting, and shaping the healthcare services they receive, making them more likely to pay attention to media campaigns for everything from lab tests to drug plan options.
These plans are already creating more proactive, cost-savvy patients. According to a survey conducted last summer by the Kaiser Foundation (Menlo Park, CA), CDHP members are almost twice as likely as members of traditional plans to use the Internet to find lower prices for prescription drugs and other types of health services and to choose lower-cost options for a recommended test or treatment. Additionally, CDHP members are more than twice as likely as traditional plan members to negotiate with a health provider to get a lower price for services. And while the proportion of all CDHP members who are scouring the Internet for lower prices remains fairly low (10%-19%), it is likely to grow rapidly, as CDHPs become more widespread and better understood by members.
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Reported Steps Taken to Reduce Costs |
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CDHP* Control |
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Gone on the Internet to find a lower price for prescription drugs |
19% |
10% |
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Chosen a lower cost option for a recommended test or treatment |
17 |
10 |
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Negotiated with a health provider to get a lower price for services |
14 |
6 |
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Gone on the Internet to find a lower price for other types of health services |
10 |
6 |
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*Those belonging to consumer-directed health plan with an accompanying savings account. |
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Source: Kaiser Foundation National Survey of Enrollees in Consumer Directed Health Plans (2006) |
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John C. Goodman, president of the National Center for Policy Analysis (Dallas, TX), sees consumer-directed healthcare as a potential solution to two problems: how to choose between healthcare and other expenditures and how to allocate resources in an industry where normal market forces have been systematically suppressed. "If private spending on healthcare keeps up with public spending," notes Goodman, "the nation will devote approximately two-thirds of its income to healthcare by 2050—roughly equal to total consumption of all goods and services today. To avoid this disastrous scenario, someone must choose between healthcare and other uses of money." That someone is shaping up to be an increasingly better-informed consumer.
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