Employees’ Utilization Of HDHPs Is Influenced By Their Income.

Employees with higher salaries are more likely to seek routine preventive care, whereas low-income workers are more likely to need emergency services.

Health insurance is one of the most valuable advantages a company can provide to its employees. However, not all employees use their health insurance in the same way. According to a new study published in the American Journal of Managed Care earlier this month, low-wage employees on high-deductible health plans use less primary care services than higher-wage employees while using more acute care services.

HDHPs, or high-deductible health plans, have gained popularity as an alternative for standard health plans in recent years. Some consider HDHPs to be advantageous since they provide employees with lower premiums. However, other experts have warned that HDHPs may deter patients from seeking preventive care, resulting in poor patient outcomes.

“Disparities in Health Care Use Among Low-Salary and High-Salary Employees,” a recent study, looked at administrative and medical claims data from employees at a large firm to see how low-salary and high-salary employees used their HDHPs. Low-wage workers, defined as those earning less than $75,000 per year, were shown to be considerably less likely than higher-wage individuals to use outpatient services. Employees earning less than $50,000, on the other hand, were substantially more likely to seek inpatient or emergency room services, resulting in a 40% rise in ED spending. The authors of the study think that the higher use of ED care may imply that low-wage patients’ health issues are not being managed as successfully as their higher-wage counterparts’.

The investigation also discovered the following:

• Employees with higher salaries are more likely to seek outpatient treatment. The study found that employees earning more than $100,000 per year were more likely to use primary care services than those earning $75,000 to $100,000 per year.
• Prescriptions are less likely to be filled by low-wage workers. Employees earning less than $75,000 a year were less likely than those earning more to use pharmacy services.
• Low-wage workers have a greater rate of avoidable hospital stays. Employees earning less than $50,000 each year were more likely to seek inpatient treatment for an avoidable problem.

The authors of the study warn that neglecting primary care services can be dangerous. The authors write, “This pattern of health-care consumption may result in delayed detection of health issues, potentially missing the window and advantages of early diagnosis or prevention.”

According to previous research, some patients, particularly low-wage workers, prefer health-care plans with more uniformly dispersed expenditure over time, such as traditional health-care plans with lower deductibles. Patients with larger deductibles may have lower overall expenditures, but less predictable month-to-month spending, which can be tough for low-wage individuals without significant savings, according to the study.

Source: https://www.benefitspro.com/2022/05/24/income-impacts-how-employees-use-hdhps/