- High deductible health plans
are private health insurance plans
that feature a large deductible
essentially before your
insurance kicks in.
So, this is similar to auto insurance
that most people have.
Where you have to pay a certain amount
before your insurance will start paying
for the rest.
There are now 40% of Americans with
private health insurance who were enrolled
in a high deductible health plan.
So, these plans are becoming
increasingly common.
They tend to be less costly for employers,
and in some cases for
patients or consumers.
And they seek to encourage patients
to be more active, judicious,
cost conscience healthcare consumers.
One major challenge with high
deductible health plans
is people going without healthcare
that they desperately need.
Research has shown that when people
move in to a high deductible health plan
they tend to decrease their use of
most healthcare services.
What that means is people getting fewer
low value services that are unlikely
to improve the health outcomes
or could lead to
unnecessary harms and cost.
Which is a good thing.
But also going without the
higher value healthcare services
that they need.
That's why there are a lot more efforts
that are needed to help patients
work with their providers
when they're in a high
deductible health plan.
To focus on helping patients
be able to access and afford the services
that are most likely to
improve their health outcomes.
Things like saving for
care that people know
they're gonna need in the future.
Talking to their provider about
how much a service is gonna cost them
and whether or not it's actually
worth the expense.
Using online tools or apps and smartphones
to figure out how much services
might cost them at different places
and then making decisions
based on that information.
Or even in some cases,
negotiating what they might pay
for a particular service that's not
and emergency service,
but something that they
may need in the future.
So, we're particularly excited about
some of the opportunities that could be
used to help more patients in
high deductible plans
get the care they need
at the lowest possible cost.
