I don’t know if you have noticed, but employers are shifting their focus on how their employees receive healthcare benefits. Most, if not all employees are being asked to be more proactive in monitoring their own healthcare. Preventive measures are being introduced and employers are rewarding those employees who take advantage of those measures with extra money in their HSA accounts or employer-based health funds.

While these new preventive measures are meant to be proactive in minimizing extensive expenses later on by using early detection and screening, the cost incurred by employees is rising. This shifting expense is another way employers are subtly making employees more responsible. Employers have figured out that heath benefits cost more for the less healthy, while these same benefits cost healthier employees less, and are choosing to reward employees accordingly.

In the area of pharmacy, employers look at medication costs from a “brand vs. generic” point of view. In a recent study concluded by a major PBM (Pharmacy Benefits Manager), the employer member whose employees opened a dialogue with their physician or pharmacist concerning using less expensive alternatives in treatment, saved more money than those who did not. In addition, that decisiveness was more evident when the employee utilized preventive care.

These observations are just the beginning. Soon, employers are going to begin charging sicker employees (based on height, weight, blood pressure, blood glucose, etc.) a healthcare premium over those who are healthier, and they will be justified in doing so based on the studies that are currently in progress. The shift will be from rewarding to charging less for those who are healthier. So, what is someone to do? Well, if these studies are an indication, then it will be in the less healthy employee’s best interest to initiate lifestyle changes now to prevent incurring additional charges (taking home less money) when signing up for employer-based healthcare benefits.

Until next time,

Dion