Top health and wellbeing priorities over next three years*
- Company costs: 69%
- Mental health and emotional wellbeing: 63%
- Employee experience: 40%
- Communication: 38%
- Diversity, equity and inclusion: 37%
- Employee affordability: 34%
68% project moderate to significant healthcare cost increases over the next three years
How employers are moving the needle on costs
At the point of care
| Action taken | Planning/Considering 2024/2025 | |
|---|---|---|
| Offer a narrow network of higher-quality and/or lower-cost providers | 18% | 24% |
| Use centers of excellence within health plans | 48% | 19% |
| Utilize plan carve-out specialty pharmacy services and solutions | 18% | 16% |
| Offer a plan option(s) that restricts/eliminates out-of-network coverage for nonemergency services | 21% | 13% |
Through health plan and vendor efficiencies
- Implement programs and/or use vendors that will reduce total costs
- Action taken: 37%
- Planning/Considering 2024/2025: 50%
- Take vendor/health plans out to bid through RFP to seek lower cost provider
- Action taken: 32%
- Planning/Considering 2024/2025: 47%
By actively managing pharmacy costs
| Action taken | Planning/considering 2024/2025 | |
|---|---|---|
| Require employees to switch to biosimilars when available by 2025 | 16% | 27% |
| Evaluate and address specialty drug costs and utilization that are paid through the medical benefit | 57% | 26% |
| Manage or limit coverage for anti-obesity medications | 52% | 22% |
| Have plan coverage exclusions or higher cost sharing for high-cost/low-value medications | 47% | 14% |
Actions to take now
- Boost efforts to better manage costs at the point of care
- Conduct analysis of your organization’s retained healthcare risk and opportunities to transfer that through changes to stop loss or use of captives
- Develop vendor strategies to reduce costs and improve member health
- Identify ways to reduce costs of prescription drugs for diabetes and weight loss and switch to biosimilars
- Eliminate cost sharing for virtual care visits for mental health services
About the survey: A total of 457 employers participated in the survey, which was conducted in June and July 2023. Respondents employ 7.3 million employees.
Download
| Title | File Type | File Size |
|---|---|---|
| Infographic: Controlling healthcare costs and boosting mental health outrank other priorities | .1 MB |
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