Voya recommended three steps to help employees overcome barriers to choosing the more optimal plan for them and their families:

Avoid naming the plan "high-deductible." Voya found employees were almost twice as likely to choose a PPO over another plan that had "high-deductible" in the name. A 2020 study by Voya asked employees to choose between identical plans with different premiums and deductibles. They consistently chose the suboptimal plan.
Encourage employees to review changing needs every year. Regardless of what type of plan they chose, most employees stick with the same one they had last year, including 94% of people covered by a PPO and 80% of those with an HDHP. Decision support tools can help them envision how their decision will affect them down the road.
Illustrate the long-term impact of current savings. It's not enough to show employees how much they could save if they don't put those savings to good use. Of course, one of the significant benefits of an HDHP is the ability to use an HSA to save and invest. Showing participants how investing the difference in premiums between an HDHP and a PPO can impact other long-term goals can also help the 63% of participants who simply pick the plan with the lowest deductible without thinking about how it affects their goals.

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3 ways to overcome high barriers set by high-deductibles