Connecticut employers are increasingly offering higher deductible health plans to workers in an effort to cut healthcare costs, according to a survey by Mercer, a New York-based health and wealth consultant.
Mercer’s national survey, which included 44 Connecticut employers and 2,544 employers across the country, found that 89 percent of the Connecticut employers surveyed are offering high-deductible consumer directed health plans to their employees, and more than half of those employees are enrolling in them.
This and other steps are part of a national trend, Mercer said, in which about 30 percent of employers across the country offered the high-deductible plans.
Employers in Connecticut and across the U.S. are also offering more “transparency” tools and services to help consumers compare healthcare prices and plan quality, the survey found. In Connecticut, 86 percent of employers do so, while nationally the figure is 82 percent.
More Connecticut employers (91 percent) also offer telemedicine as a low-cost alternative to an office visit, compared with 71 percent of employers nationally.
Other findings in Connecticut include:
- Total health benefit cost for active employees increased 5.5 percent in 2017, to an average of $15,187 per employee;
- The average employee share of total premium cost (across all plans and coverage tiers) is 21 percent;
- When asked about their 2018 costs, respondents estimated that if they made no changes to their current plan, cost would rise by 5.9 percent. However, they expect to hold their cost increase to 4.5 percent by making changes to plan design and/or plan vendors.
