Consumer Directed Health Plans

This book provides a balanced 360 degree view of consumer directed health care. It provides insight, analysis, and original research to help us see more clearly the important dimension in the future of American health care.

Consumer-Directed Healthcare and Its Implications for Providers will arm your organization to respond to increasing demands. It explains what consumer-directed products are entering the market, how to position your organization to respond to these models, and what strategies to use during negotiations with insurers. A payer contract checklist is included to help you evaluate contracts. The book also touches on the effect consumer-directed care will have on teaching hospitals and those hospitals providing a greater portion of indigent care. The author explores possible long-term scenarios, including a return to billed charges, rates based on a percentage of Medicare, and the development of a national health plan.

Health plans have expanded consumer-directed health plan (CDHP) product offeringsâ€"typically high-deductible health plans coupled with a spending accountâ€"and more employers are offering these products to workers, according to findings from the Center for Studying Health System Change's (HSC) 2007 site visits to 12 nationally representative metropolitan communities. [BREAK] In developing CDHPs, health plans are responding to a broader employer strategy to confer more responsibility on workers for their health care costs, lifestyle choices and treatment decisions. CDHP adoption by employers and consumers depends on a range of factors, including product features and employer characteristics, and varies across the 12 communities. While more large employers are introducing CDHPs into health benefit programs, adoption of CDHPs remains modest. Health plans and employers expect CDHP enrollment to grow as employers and employees become more knowledgeable about CDHP features, health plans develop more sophisticated support tools for plan enrollees, and there are more opportunities to learn from early adopters' experiences.

We are all excellent consumers. We collectively have no problem clearly identifying what we want, how we want it and when the price is right. We make our educated presence known in almost every marketplace except one-healthcare. Managed care and its first dollar benefits have created a problem and the solution is . consumer directed healthcare. We can fix our system of healthcare and your second largest business expense, behind payroll, if we stop buying health plans and start buying health insurance.