Dive Brief:
- A recent survey from the Employee Benefit Research Institute underscores the importance of employers providing adequate education and decision support tools when moving employees into a high‐deductible health plan (HDHP), according to Employee Benefits News.
- The survey results reinforce the value of putting the money saved by reducing employees’ health care premiums into a health savings account (HSA). According to the survey, 49% of employees who participate in an HDHP and have at least some "health engagement" contributed at least $1,500 to an HSA last year, versus 40% who do not demonstrate any engagement.
- When asked whether they had access to an HDHP at work, 34% didn’t know, according to the EBRI report. And according to research from Fidelity, up to 30% of employees don’t understand that HSA dollars can be saved for the long term.
Dive Insight:
“When an employee moves from a traditional plan to a high‐deductible plan, his cost will go down. That’s the time to encourage them not to pocket the difference, but put it instead in an HSA,” Will Applegate, vice president of HSA sales for Fidelity Investments, told Employee Benefits News. “It speaks to the need for greater engagement.”
Steve Adams, CEO at Naverra, a provider of a cloud‐based benefits engagement service, says education and support are especially critical elements when switching employees from traditional health plans to HDHPs with HSAs. He adds that there are a variety of new benefits enrollment tools that provide engaging education and decision support that help employees make well‐informed decisions about their benefits.
“Technology‐enabled enrollment tools need to present all the information for employees to make well‐informed decisions in an easy‐to‐understand, compelling and easily accessible manner,” Adams says, adding that employee interaction should be self‐paced and driven by previous experience and the desire to learn more about specific products, including HSAs.
