The Employee Benefit Research Institute’s latest report on consumer-directed healthcare confirms a lot of what we already knew or suspected. Members of CDHPs tend to be healthy, wealthy and educated. They are also more cost-conscious and engaged than members of traditional health plans, but less satisfied with the quality of care they receive and less likely to stick with their current plan when given a choice. “Differences in satisfaction with out-of-pocket costs may explain a significant portion of the difference in overall satisfaction rates,” the study notes. And like the wealthy, members of CDHPs represent a tiny share of the overall population. Some counterintuitive findings:
There was no significant variation in the frequency with which people with chronic conditions followed their treatment regimen across plan types, with one exception: CDHP enrollees with allergies were less likely than traditional plan enrollees with allergies to follow their treatment regimen. Generally, these 2009 findings are in contrast to somewhat mixed findings in 2007. In 2007, people in CDHPs with arthritis and hypertension were significantly less likely to say that they followed their treatment regimens for their conditions carefully. But people in CDHPs with depression were significantly more likely to say they followed their treatment regimens carefully than did those with traditional coverage.
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