Watson Wyatt Gives Snapshot of Open Enrollment Trends

Health Incentives: A number of trends are dominating this year’s open enrollment, a study reports. Companies are increasing incentives to encourage healthy lifestyles, while others are increasing penalties for people who smoke. Forty-six percent of employers offer incentives; an additional 26 percent will do so in 2008, according to Watson Wyatt Worldwide and the National Business Group on Health.

Among the other findings are:

• More employers are making preventive medical, including preventive drugs, free for employees, especially those in high-deductible plans. Preventive measures paid for by employers include vaccinations, exams and screenings for early diagnosis of breast, colon and cervical cancers, in addition to more commonly offered preventive measures such as blood pressure and cholesterol checkups and flu shots.
  
• Forty-four percent of large employers currently offer health coaches, and an additional 13 percent say they will offer health coaches next year. Nearly 25 percent of large employers offer on-site medical clinics.
  
• Employers are improving their communication with workers, providing online tools to help them evaluate and estimate their health care expenses and needs and manage their personal health care. The use of corporate portals has become increasingly popular to encourage employees to act more like consumers rather than patients when it comes to managing their health.
  
• Watson Wyatt research shows that 40 percent of companies will offer workers a health savings account next year and more employers will offer a consumer- directed health plan as their only option in order to decrease administrative costs. The survey found that 5 percent of employers now offer a consumer-driven plan on a total replacement basis and another 4 percent plan to do so in 2008.