Laurel Pickering, MPH, Describes How Employer Tools Help Employees Become Better Consumers

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Laurel Pickering, MPH, of the Northeast Business Group on Health, explains that employers are transitioning employees into consumers with the help of “transparency tools” centered around price and quality. She says although employees were once shielded from the cost and quality of care, they are now becoming increasingly responsible for managing their own healthcare.

Ms Pickering says that employers are using benefit design to encourage employees to make better decisions about their health as well as where they seek services. In addition, employers are removing copays for critical medications and implementing incentives or wellness programs that will motivate workers to become — and stay — healthy.

“Engaging them with incentives is another way of getting them to think more about their healthcare, purchase healthcare better, and actually engage in a way that they haven’t been engaged,” MS Pickering says. “There are lots of things employers are doing right now to help employees be better consumers of healthcare both in the way they manage their health and in the way they shop for benefits.”