Employers are increasingly adding digital healthcare to the benefits they offer employees, says a new study from Mercer.
Employers are most often giving telemedicine or digital doctor visits, according to Mercers annual survey of 2,544 big and small companies that offer employer-sponsored health plans.
In 2016, 59% of employers surveyed offered workers access to a telemedicine program, compared with 30% in 2015 and just 16% in 2014, says Mercer, which provides employee benefits programs and consulting among other services.
Savings for members who use telehealth can be significant, especially before their deductible is met, as a typical charge for a telemedicine visit is $40, compared to $125 for an office visit, says Mercer. Most large employers (82%) also now cover visits to a retail clinic through their plans, providing another lower-cost, convenient option to workers. Before the deductible, a visit to a typical retail clinic might cost around $60, according to the survey.
More than one quarter (28%) of big employers with 20,000 or more employees provide employees with access to digital healthcare tools such as self-service web tools that enable workers to research and compare healthcare plans, providers and prices.
Being able to compare prices on higher-priced services is another way to save money and more large employers contracted with a specialty vendor provide their employees with a transparency tool as an online resource to help them compare provider price and quality, according to the Mercer survey. Among those with 20,000 or more employees, 28% provided transparency tools through a vendor in 2016, up from just 15% two years ago while an additional 62% say their health plan provides some type of transparency tool.
Employers are providing workers with more access to digital healthcare resources to help lower medical expensesand because more consumers are paying more out of their own pockets for healthcare or enrolling in higher deductible health plans.
Enrollment in high-deductible consumer-directed health plans, or what employee benefits managers call, has been rising for a decade and in 2016 jumped to 29% of all covered workers, up from 25% in 2015, Mercer says.
Employee paycheck deductions are typically lower for CDHPs than for other medical plan choices they might have, according to the Mercer study. At the same time, employers have been taking steps to mitigate employees growing financial risk by making telemedicine and other less-expensive types of care available to help stretch their workers healthcare dollars.
Among organizations with 20,000 or more employees, 80% now give employees the option to enroll in high-deductible consumer-directed health plans and enrollment jumped from 29% to 40% of covered employees in 2016, Mercer says.
Overall, total health benefits cost averaged $11,920 per employee in 2016. The average cost for big employees was $12,288 and $11,271 for small employees, says Mercer.
Employers continue to be challenged to provide high quality, affordable healthcare coverage for all employees, says Sharon Cunninghis, North American leader of Mercers health business.