Though the economy is rebounding,still-rising health costs are forcing employers to rethink healthbenefit plan designs.

According to a survey by the National Business Group on Health,60 percent of employers will increase the employee share of healthbenefits costs this year.

While a handful of employers plan not to offer health plans to employees anymore, othershave begun increasing premiums, or are replacing flat co-pays withcost-sharing or offering high-deductible plans coupled with healthsavings plans in order to keep offering employee benefits, saysMichele Woodham, director of agency operations at Odyssey OneSource, a human resources outsourcing company.

Jim Mutz, director of benefits services for Odyssey One Sourcesays that employees know “everyone is in the same boat” and havecountered increases by contributing more to flexible spendingaccounts, dropping ancillary benefits and maximizing employercontributions. In order to avoid paying increased premiums, manyemployees are also choosing to go with the higher-deductible planswith HSAs to help pay for health care costs.

George Pantos, the executive director of the HealthcarePerformance Management Institute, a Maryland-based think tank, sayshe believes the key is to find ways for companies to control costincreases in the first place.

“Cost shifting is not cost control,” he says, noting thatemployees have to pick up the difference, which can have a bigeffect on employees’ salaries and lifestyles.

George and his company conduct research help companies find waysto trim costs, by using “healthcare performance management.” HPM isbasically software technology that uses health data to identifythose in a workplace population with chronic, high-cost conditionssuch as obesity, diabetes and high blood pressure.

Using this data, such as how many times an employee went to thedoctor in the last year or what their medication claims were,employers can identify proactive ways to help employees with thesehigh-cost conditions, which in turn help curb costs. And, becauseit doesn’t single out any one employee with a health condition, itdoesn’t conflict with HIPAA.

One proactive idea is to create wellness programs like exercisegroups or health seminars to inspire and show employees ways tobecome healthier, which would eventually lead to a decrease inhealth claims. Case studies have shown that when employees areoffered a financial incentive to participate in wellness classes,about 80 percent do so.

To demonstrate just how much a company can save by implementingHPM strategies, George cites The SCOOTER Store case study, whichsaved more than $2 million in health-related costs from 2009 to2010.

The SCOOTER store, founded in 1991, sells powered wheelchairsand scooters and employs about 2,800 employees. Deanna Scott, vicepresident of human resources for The SCOOTER Store said thecompany’s claims were skyrocketing, and realized they needed adifferent approach to combat costs.

“We needed to focus on illness prevention, as opposed to justpaying for what’s already happened,” she says.

The first thing they did was put in a free, on-site gym foremployees. The momentum from this spawned the company’s brandedwellness program, “Live, Work, Be Well” which is sponsored throughWellnet Interactive and Personalized Prevention.

A Wellnet Interactive HPM system was put into place, which usedprescription and medical claims data to indentify high-riskemployees. WellNet then reached out to employees with ways in whichthey could lower those health risks.

The SCOOTER Store also added a full-time on-site clinic foremployees, where employees don’t have to pay a co-pay to be seen bya doctor.

Scott says year-over-year employee health costs went down 22percent in 2010, a savings of $2.3 million.

Health care reform is another concern for employers worriedabout employee benefits.

“Employers are genuinely concerned. There is so much unknownuntil 2014,” said Woodham.

Mutz says no one knows if health care reform is really going toreign in costs.

Jeremy Sharp, partner at Walter and Haverfield in Cleveland saysthat while we are in health care reform limbo, employers should beworking to improve efficiency down the road.

One good outcome of health care reform, he says, is that aspeople see it in the news every day, they’ve begun to think moreabout their own health. Employees have “now come to appreciate thatthey have a stake in health care,” Sharp says.

Sharp believes that health care reform, once fully phased in,will lead to stabilized costs, especially if healthy people arerequired to pay into the system under the individual mandate.

The issue is what to do in the meantime. He says the most commonquestion he gets from employers is “What do I do?” Sharp alsoadvocates implementing wellness programs. He says offering programssuch as a lunch-time walking club for employees not only canimprove employees’ health; they also create happier employees.

“They talk about work, and they come back to the office feelingmore energized,” he said.