Consumer Driven Healthcare

RMP Consumer-Driven Healthcare: Cutting Costs & Achieving Better Healthcare Outcomes
At Risk Management Partners LLC, we promote the concept of consumer-driven healthcare, which means greater patient involvement in their healthcare decision-making. Patients or consumers generally take greater responsibility and are more involved in their healthcare decision-making when they bear more of the economic consequences of those decisions.

Determine the Best Consumer-Driven Healthcare Approach
There are multiple approaches to an effective consumer-driven healthcare strategy. The most common approach is to allow members to use a personal Health Savings Account (HSA) or Health Reimbursement Account (HRA). Both of these types of accounts:

• Allow employees to pay directly for most routine healthcare expenses.
• Are linked with a high-deductible health insurance policy that protects employees from catastrophic medical expenses.

High-deductible policies cost less, but the user pays routine medical claims using a pre-funded spending account, often with a special debit card provided by a bank or insurance plan.

Another approach is to use a more traditional preferred provider organization (PPO) or point-of-service (POS) model, with higher deductibles and co-payments. This type of benefit design is often called a “Cost-Sharing Plan.”

Benefits of Consumer-Driven Healthcare
There are many benefits to adopting a consumer-driven strategy including:

• Better healthcare outcomes are achieved for consumers and their families when they work with their physicians and healthcare providers.
• Healthcare usage is more cost efficient with empowered and knowledgeable consumers who use information tools.
• Price and quality transparency provided about healthcare professionals helps consumers make more effective healthcare choices.

What is an HSA?
What is an HRA?

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