DirectPath and Gartner Unveil 2019 Medical Trends and Observations Report

DirectPath,
the company who guides employees to make better health care decisions,
today unveiled its annual Medical
Trends and Observations Report. Created in collaboration with Gartner,
the 2019 report indicates that employers are increasingly designing
benefits strategies that deliver the personalized options employees
expect in today’s competitive marketplace, while containing health care
costs at both the individual and organizational level.

As part of their personalization efforts, employers are increasingly
offering and expanding voluntary benefits options. The 2019 report shows
that, more and more, employers are broadening their offerings to include
financial protection and lifestyle benefits – likely to cater to Gen X,
Millennial and Gen Z employees who are typically not as focused on
health-related benefits. Seventy-five percent of employers now offer
supplemental life insurance (up from 45 percent last year) and 60
percent offer Accidental Death and Dismemberment (AD&D) insurance (up
from 30 percent in 2018). For the first time, the analysis also shows
employers offering adoption assistance (19 percent), backup child care
(7 percent) and financial wellness checks (7 percent) as voluntary
benefits.

The 2019 Medical Trends and Observations Report – based on an analysis
of more than 1,000 employee benefits plans from nearly 200 companies –
also reveals that employers are:

• Investing heavily in HRAs and HSAs: Fifty-one percent of all
  employers offer tax-advantaged reimbursement accounts in conjunction
  with their high deductible health plans (HDHPs). Of these employers,
  the vast majority (79 percent) offer Health Savings Accounts (HSAs),
  while only 21 percent offer Health Reimbursement Arrangements (HRAs).
  Roughly 10 percent of employers offer both, because they sponsor more
  than one HDHP. While the average “base” employer contribution
  to these accounts has declined – for HRAs, contributions decreased 13
  percent for individuals and 15 percent for families year-over-year –
  this appears to be because more employers are providing employees with
  the opportunity to “earn” additional contributions by participating in
  specified wellness behaviors.
• Rewarding more wellness initiatives: Forty-two percent of
  employers are offering wellness incentives, up from 20 percent last
  year. Biometric screenings and health risk assessments remain the most
  rewarded wellness behaviors, with 30 percent and 28 percent of
  employers offering them, respectively. Interestingly, employers
  are now expanding the definition of wellness – rewarding employees who
  get a dental checkup, obtain a second opinion, use a center of
  excellence or who seek to improve the “wellness” of their community by
  donating blood or volunteering.
• Revisiting HDHPs: HDHPs now account for 41 percent of all
  offered plans – after several years of holding steady at around 30
  percent. This increase may reflect a desire by employers to offer a
  range of plans to meet the diverse needs of their multigenerational
  workforce and an increased focus on – and interest in – HRAs and HSAs
  by employers of all sizes as a tool for saving for the future as well
  as for meeting immediate health care costs.
• Covering preventive drugs: Twelve percent of employers are
  covering preventive drugs at no cost and a handful are covering them
  at a lower cost (lower copay or higher coinsurance level) than generic
  medications. With Americans on average filling over 12 prescriptions
  per year, this too may be tied to the uptick in HDHPs – the high
  deductibles can also make some participants hesitant to fill
  prescriptions, including those for medications (such as blood
  pressure, cholesterol and diabetic medications) that can prevent or
  delay the onset of conditions that can become costly to treat.
• Foregoing telemedicine: Forty two percent of employers offer
  telemedicine as a health care delivery option – down from 55 percent
  last year. While this may be due to the relatively low utilization
  rates of these types of plans, employers may want to reconsider this
  strategy – and beef up their communications promoting the program – as recent
  research indicates that millennials are increasingly electing “on
  demand” health care in place of a primary care physician.

“Employers are diversifying their benefits options and employees are
taking note,” said Brian Kropp, group vice president of Gartner’s HR
practice. “Our data suggests that voluntary benefits, in particular,
have a significant impact on employees’ perceptions of their health care
benefits – which could suggest that organizations are on the right track
with their 2019 strategies.”

Kim Buckey, VP of client services at DirectPath, added: “For years,
we’ve encouraged employers to design creative health care benefits
strategies that cater to each employee’s unique needs while controlling
health care-related costs. The results of our 2019 report findings
suggest that employers are striving to do just that. Organizations are
taking steps to provide employees with more options than ever before –
whether that’s through an expanded voluntary benefits package or rewards
for a broader range of wellness behaviors. The key now is to educate
employees on the value of these offerings so they can best utilize them
– and ultimately drive down health care costs for themselves and for
their employers.”

To download the full 2019 Medical Trends and Observations report, please
visit this
page. DirectPath will present the report findings in a webinar
today, March 5 at 11:00 AM EST. To register for the webinar, "Pulse on
Medical Plan Trends and Observations," please visit here.

Research Methodology

The report is based on an analysis of more than 1,000 employer health
plans drawn from The Lab®, the industry’s only medical health plan
benchmarking database, powered by DirectPath and Gartner research. The
Lab supplies real-time access to in-depth plan and pricing information,
helping benefits teams compare their plans with other organizations by
industry, geography and company size. DirectPath offers companies the
ability to benchmark their plans against industry comparisons in The Lab.

About Gartner

Gartner, Inc. (NYSE: IT) is the world's leading research and advisory
company and a member of the S&P 500. We equip business leaders with
indispensable insights, advice and tools to achieve their
mission-critical priorities and build the successful organizations of
tomorrow.

Our unmatched combination of expert-led, practitioner-sourced and
data-driven research steers clients toward the right decisions on the
issues that matter most. We are a trusted advisor and objective resource
for more than 15,000 organizations in more than 100 countries — across
all major functions, in every industry and enterprise size.

To learn more about how we help decision makers fuel the future of
business, visit gartner.com.

About DirectPath:

DirectPath guides employees to make better health care decisions with
individualized education for selecting the right benefit plan, expert
assistance in making informed care choices and rewards for sensible
financial decisions. Its customers experience significant ROI on their
benefits investments through increased employee participation,
management of the evolving regulatory environment and reduced cost
through a benefits plan system of record. DirectPath has offices
throughout the country. For more information, visit the DirectPath website
and follow the company on Twitter.

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