Consumer Driven Health Care

For the benefits and HR industry, more reliance on technology, equals more reliance on brokers to help employers make their way in an ever more complex world.

A growing number of Americans are incorporating strategies for affording health insurance into financial planning, adapting money and salaries to yield better choices much as people place money into 401(k) plans to save for retirement while reducing their taxes.

Brokers, carriers and politicians have written and spoken volumes about the status of health care benefits in 2017. As the year winds down, is it possible to sum up the 12-month roller-coaster in just one word?

The most serious and urgent concerns that need to be addressed are the affordability of health care, health insurance and prescription drugs, according to a survey of more than 2,000 adults.

Purdue Pharma LP acknowledged in a letter that the maker of the opioid painkiller Oxycontin is in negotiations with state attorneys general over lawsuits accusing the company of creating a public-health crisis with its mishandling of the drug.

Earlier this month, House Republicans proposed eliminating the orphan drug tax credits, one of many financial incentives for drugmakers intended to spur development of medicines for rare diseases.

While 54 percent of family physicians indicate their practices participate in value-based payment models, there are still issues that must be resolved before broader acceptance occurs.

Even though such plans are becoming more common, workers with high-deductible health plans arent taking any of the actions one might expect them to takefrom actually putting money into an HDHP savings account to checking for the best prices.