Can you trust your employees to become savvy to both the cost and quality of their care?

Studies show that when it comes to choices about when, where and how to seek out care, most people make emotional decisions, not rational ones.  When people ask their doctors questions about their care, it’s far more likely to fall along the lines of “Will I be OK?” rather than “How much will it cost?”

There’s also a tendency for people to follow their doctor’s recommendations. Think about how long it’s taken to educate employees to ask about the availability of generic drugs and teach them that  generic provide the same benefits as name brands (especially ones that are advertised on TV).

When cost of care does enter into people’s minds, it often arises in ways that employers DON’T want: avoiding care altogether out of fear of not being able to afford out-of-pocket costs (i.e., deductibles).

Most employers are aware of these obstacles. The problem has been overcoming them. Usually the employee education burden falls directly on the shoulders of already overstretched HR/benefits managers.

It used to be that employee education meant teaching employees about the health (and other) benefits available to them and how to access them.  Today, the task also includes the responsibility of teaching folks how to research their own care and interact with their doctors. Finance types rarely appreciate just how difficult this chore really is.    

Sensitive subjects

Here’s an example of the difficulty HR/benefits faces in playing the role of teacher:  When discussing the need for preventive care (one of the hallmarks of consumer-driven healthcare), is it your responsibility to discuss potentially sensitive subjects?

Much like medical benefits themselves, medical practices constantly evolve. In the last couple years, several medical boards and regulatory groups revised their guidelines for preventive healthcare. One of the most controversial changes in the guidelines: providing routine sexually transmitted disease (STD) screenings for adolescents.

Not every carrier has elected to add STD tests as a standard preventive-care benefit for employees’ dependents. But, among others, many Blue Cross plans now provide first-dollar coverage for the screenings.  What should YOUR role be in teaching employees that the benefit is available to their dependents? Do you:

• simply pass the info along, without further context or explanation, in an e-mail or memo?
• rely on employees who need the info to find it in the benefits newsletter the carrier sends out?
• deal with the discomfort of telling employees to talk the sensitive issue over with their teenage kids and their doctors?

Any of these approaches has the potential to backfire. From a purely financial/consumerist point of view, we know that the first two options rarely work.  But what employer wants to risk resentment (or worse) from employees by recommending they tell their teenagers to get tested for STDs?  

Bottom line: It’s easy for the bean counters to stress the cost-saving advantages of preventive care. It’s easy for social advocates to say this sort of education is part of corporate responsibility. These people aren’t the ones who deal directly with your employees.   Frankly, we’d love to see one of THEM volunteer to lead a discussion on  STD screenings at your annual health plan meeting.