Employers believe VBD improves employee health and productivity

Apr 7 2010

A new study confirms that employers believe value-based design (VBD) improves employee health and productivity. The Center for Health Value Innovation, the nation's premier information exchange for value-based design, today announced the results of a survey, "Value-Based Design 2009," conducted by Buck Consultants, a global employee benefits and human resources consulting firm.

“The survey responses prove that organizations using VBD understand the vital importance of this approach. Despite the recession - when employers more likely to cut expenses by changing their benefits - few of the organizations using VBD changed their benefits structure.”

The survey is the most comprehensive of its kind in the industry, studying 100 employers in 16 major industries, reporting on more than 1 million covered lives, including retirees.

VBD uses benefit design and delivery to align incentives for workers, employers, and providers to improve health and financial outcomes through behavior change. The survey results validate the Center's efforts to promote VBD as an effective means to improve total health and performance across communities.

"This survey is the first one that examines the experience of companies of all sizes and sectors who had a value-based design in place for two or more years," says Cyndy Nayer, President and CEO of the Center. "It validates the work of the Center, and expands the knowledge base of change and innovation for the market. In particular, this survey demonstrates increasing focus on employee assistance programs, depression, and financial counseling, which ties in with our goal to expand the definition of VBD and link it to total health and performance."

Michael Jacobs, principal for Buck Consultants and member of the Center's Board of Directors, adds, "The survey responses prove that organizations using VBD understand the vital importance of this approach. Despite the recession - when employers more likely to cut expenses by changing their benefits - few of the organizations using VBD changed their benefits structure."

According to the survey respondents who currently have VBD incorporated into the health program for employees, 79 percent made no changes in 2009. Additionally, more than one half of these companies (56 percent) anticipate no changes in these benefits for 2010.

Other significant survey results include the use of VB levers to improve stakeholder engagement:

• 87 percent use for prevention/wellness
• 60 percent use for chronic care management
• 80 percent use for disease management
• 63 percent waive employee cost sharing for yearly screening exam
• 40 percent provide insurance premium incentive for completion of a Health Risk Assessment (HRA)
• 54 percent cover depression under care management program
• 70 percent reduce/waive co-pay for utilizing the lowest cost appropriate site of care (e.g., urgent care, convenient care, onsite services, medical travel)
• 58 percent provide incentives for the use of EAP programs
• 35 percent provide incentives for financial counseling

"With this survey we can now point to hard numbers that back up everything that we have been communicating regarding the power of VBD to transform health and the administration of health benefits in this country," says Nayer, noting that there is still work to be done. "We see a growing expansion of value-based design, linking the health and wealth of the individual to the health and wealth of the organization."

Nayer and Jack Mahoney, M.D., chief medical officer of the Center and former corporate medical director for Pitney Bowes, have spent the last decade showing the evidence for the widespread adoption of VBD programs. Their collective experience and expertise, coupled with co-author Jan Berger, M.D., culminated in the publication of Leveraging Health (2009). The book uses the experience of innovators in many organizations to document "suites" of levers, a metaphor for plan designs and incentives, showing decision makers how to make informed decisions on benefits and services for better corporate performance.

Dr. Mahoney lauds the Buck Consultants survey: "It is very gratifying to see statistics confirm something we have known for years. One common measurement of improved VBD activity is that 74 percent of survey respondents indicate that employees are now getting preventative exams and annual screenings. We see this as a tipping point and envision landmark changes ahead as more employers embrace VBD to drive change by improving the health and productivity of their workforce."