"Consumer-Driven Healthcare"
26th Annual Meeting and Conference
Tuesday, April 13, 2004 - 8:00am-2:30pm
The Westin Waltham, 70 Third Avenue, Waltham, MA
CD-ROM of Conference is available:
(slide presentations with audio from each session)
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Price: |
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Members - $80 |
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Non-members - $120 |
Available payment options are credit card (Amex, MC, Visa) or check. The CD-Rom will be mailed to you upon receipt of payment (credit card order confirmation or a check made out to the MA Health Data Consortium).
Agenda | Exhibitors | Sponsorship Opportunities | Co-Sponsors | Bios
Session Descriptions: Keynote | Session 1 | Session 2 | Session 3
Session 2 Description:
"Employer Approach" to Consumer-Driven Healthcare
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Panel to Discuss CDHP Choices & Results
After Staples rolled out a consumer-driven health plan in two locations and partnered with its traditional plans to more effectively educate their members about their self-help resources, Nancy Lazgin, Director of Global Benefits, began hearing from participants that they hadn't realized how much an office visit cost or the comparative expense of an MRI and an X-ray.
"They would say: 'I didn't know there was a difference of $50 between a generic drug and the name brand I've been using,'" she said.
Lazgin and other health care benefits leaders will discuss the choices their organizations made in moving to consumer-driven health plans on the "Employer Approach" panel at the Consortium's 26th Annual Meeting and "Consumer-Driven Healthcare" Conference April 13 at The Westin Waltham.
Joining Lazgin will be Dolores Mitchell, Executive Director of the Group Insurance Commission; Doug Stewart, Benefits Generalist at Textron; and Rose Umile, Senior Manager of Employee Benefits for Raytheon. Denise D. Hilger, JD, Assistant General Counsel for Fidelity Investments, will serve as moderator and present a "Financial Model Of Consumer-Empowerment."
Mitchell said the Group Insurance Commission (GIC), which provides health and other benefits to Massachusetts government employees, retirees and dependents, recently finished a procurement process that will shift its focus over the coming three years. "We will be working with health plans to focus on the delivery systems, differentiating them by cost-effectiveness and quality," she said. "We're looking to collect large data sets to enable our plans to make meaningful distinctions and to let their enrollees in on the result."
Stewart said that Textron implemented a consumer-driven health plan to a pilot group in 2002 and to the remainder of the Textron enterprise in 2003. He will chronicle the thought process involved in adoption of a full replacement consumer-driven health plan, from philosophy through implementation.
"Now that we've completed the first year of a companywide implementation, we're looking closely at our utilization and other trends," said Stewart. "However, we have consistently maintained that our first priority is to be able to provide a quality health care plan for our employees."
Raytheon introduced a consumer driven health plan option in 2002 to increase employees awareness as healthcare consumers and improve overall
employee satisfaction with the healthcare options offered to them. Umile
will discuss the implementation of the CDH plans throughout Raytheon and focus on some "lessons learned".
Hilger will address the topic from the perspective of Fidelity Investments' employer services business, which provides record-keeping services to client companies.
"Employers are encouraging their employees to take more responsibility when it comes to their health care benefits," she said, so Fidelity has developed a variety of tools to accommodate a behavioral shift toward consumerism.
Staples has moved slowly in rolling out its consumer-driven health plan, because "it's a concept that doesn't resonate with people used to managed care, and in order for this type of plan to be effective, it needs meaningful communication and ongoing education," said Lazgin, who is concerned about getting this level of recurrent education to more than 1,200 locations.
However, the company recognizes that educating its associates to be good consumers of health care is key for any company today. Therefore, it has developed a Benefit Resource Center Web site and a quarterly newsletter, Maximizing Your Benefits. Recent issues of the newsletter have focused on what the health plans have to offer in the way of assistance in understanding the health care labyrinth, including Nurseline tips and some cost and quality information. The response from consumers: "This information is great and makes seeking health care easier."
For further information on any of our conferences and events, please contact Jerilyn Heinold, Director of Education, via e-mail. If you would like information on exhibiting opportunities for this or other events, please contact Arleen Coletti, Director of Member & Exhibiting Services via e-mail or by phone (781)768-2512.
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