You Should Know:
- Integrated data and information tools are offered with consumer-directed health plans (CDHPs) - empowering consumers to make informed and responsible health care decisions.
- Research shows that with helpful information and support, consumers are more likely to demonstrate the kind of behavior that drives down health care costs and leads to better health outcomes.1 Research also has shown that total health spending is reduced when consumers assume more responsibility for their health care expenses.2
- Online information tools help consumers predict their health care utilization for the coming year, estimate out-of-pocket costs and calculate appropriate contributions to their flexible spending accounts (FSAs) or health savings accounts (HSAs). Aetna's online information tools enable consumers to compare hospitals and choose health care treatment options that best suit their needs.
- These tools help consumers to be better prepared for health care events and make decisions that are right for them.
Background
With health care premiums soaring at double-digit rates (11.2 percent in 2004), many employers have been forced to reduce benefits, shift more costs to employees or drop coverage entirely. The marketplace increasingly is turning to CDHPs with high deductibles that create consumer awareness of health care costs. When combined with easy-to-use information tools, consumers can effectively evaluate their health care options.
How Consumer Information Tools Work
Information tools, such as Aetna's Hospital Comparison Tool, strengthen consumers' ability to navigate the health care system. These tools, available either online or by telephone, assist CDHP members in most facets of their health care, from enrolling in a benefits plan to estimating out-of-pocket costs and FSA contributions. Consumers benefit by learning more about their medical conditions and how to manage them, which area hospital may be best for upcoming treatment and what they need to know about prescription drugs.
The Aetna Difference
Recognizing that information and engagement are vital to today's health care consumer, Aetna has developed a full array of health and benefits management information tools. Available online through Aetna Navigator™, the company's easy-to-use, self-service member website, and via telephone, these member tools include an interactive online health and wellness program; evidence-based, clinical information on 5,000 health topics; a hospital comparison tool; and a suite of cost comparison tools.
Results
A Hewitt study found that with information and guidance consumers are more likely to engage in behaviors that drive down costs and lead to better health outcomes.
3 For example, 81 percent of 39,000 employees surveyed nationally believed they can talk to their doctors about treatment and prescription options. The study also found that employees who were aware that they had medical expense estimators available were more likely to set aside money to cover future health care expenses and were more likely to ask for a generic drug option.
Aetna's own research shows that among members of an Aetna HealthFund® product, supported by Aetna's online tools, 83 percent say they are more conscious of health care costs, and 82 percent say the plan provides access to information needed to make informed decisions.
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Questions & Answers:
Q. Is the availability of so many information tools a sign that consumer-directed health is too complicated for people to understand?
A. Most consumers spend more time researching a car purchase or a vacation than they do their choice of health benefits. Becoming engaged consumers is not always an easy task, but the benefits are enormous, especially with the right tools. With access to tools and information about health care costs and quality, consumers are positioned as never before to make decisions that are right for them.
Aetna provides members with access to a wealth of health and benefits management information online through Aetna Navigator™, the company's easy-to-use, self-service member website, and via telephone. Aetna's member tools include an interactive online health and wellness program that uses health risk assessments, tailored health reports and action plans with wellness counseling to help members make positive health changes at their own pace. An innovative health information source that provides access to evidence-based, clinical information on 5,000 health topics helps members choose health care treatment options that best suit their needs and preferences. Another information tool allows members to compare hospitals on certain diagnoses and procedures. Aetna also makes available a suite of cost comparison tools called "Estimate the Cost of Care," which provides cost information for prescription drugs, medical and dental procedures, office visits, medical tests and a variety of diseases and conditions.
Q. Are these tools easy to use?
A. Yes. Log-ins to Aetna Navigator increased 38 percent between 2003 and 2004. Our experience is that members are benefiting from CDHPs and the information they make available. Among Aetna HealthFund HRA members surveyed, 87 percent say the plan gives them a high level of control over their health care spending, and 88 percent say the plan is easy to use.
Q. Are online informational tools useful only for skilled Web users?
A. Not at all. A Kaiser Family Foundation study (January 12, 2005) found that the Internet is fast becoming a very important source for informing health care decisions among people of almost all ages. In fact, more than two-thirds (70 percent) of the next generation of seniors (ages 50-64) already use the Internet as a key source of health information.
