Introduction to High Performing Health Plans

What exactly are High Performing Health Plans (HPHP), and are these methods and principals that any organization - large or small - can replicate?

The easy answer is yes.

Most Fortune 500 companies have created HPHP's within their organizations.

Employers have redefined the deal with employees, optimizing their investments in building and sustaining a culture of health, while capturing a health dividend for the business. These groups realized long ago that they could achieve better results by replacing old models and processes with new ones.

By doing so, these organizations benefit from a healthier workforce, which in turn reduces overall health expenditures. In addition, they typically pay lower Workers Compensation costs, reduce lost productivity and absenteeism, and benefit from an overall happier workforce.

High Performers meet several objectives within key areas:

1. Manage Employer and Employee Costs,

2. Enhance efficient purchasing of healthcare services,

3. Enhance Employee satisfaction, understanding and involvement in health benefit programs, and

4. Support Employees' good health while addressing health risks and current health problems in the employee population.

Now we can explore some of the key aspects that these companies enjoy:

HPHP's have a distinct cost advantage over their non-performing counterparts:

• They pay 18% less - roughly $2,000 per employee - for their health benefit programs than a low-performing competitor.

• They pay 20% less than their low-performing counterparts.

• While 35% of low performers report double-digit rate increases, high performing companies are keeping trends well below national averages. Over 33% of these organizations have held their costs to 4% or less.

• Additional aspects of the health dividend for these organizations include supporting/building the company reputation, attracting the needed workforce, maintaining productivity and supporting workforce well-being - all areas where high performers are roughly twice as likely as low-performers to report positive impact delivered by their health programs.

• Investments in wellness programs, communication and measurement disciplines - hallmarks of the HPHP's - will be increasingly prevalent across all companies just three years from now.

• As a final critical point, ongoing program performance could have significant implications for employees under healthcare reform. Regardless of how the impact of reform unfolds, it's clear that companies with efficient programs and a clear, forward-looking strategy for supporting workforce health will be the winners in the new environment.

We often hear the phrase "bending the cost curve". Easier said than done in most instances, but implementing the High Performing strategies most certainly get us closer to actually reducing costs.

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