ALEXANDRIA, Va. — More than three-quarters (79 percent) of organizations that provide health care coverage to their employees are very concerned about controlling health care costs, according to the latest Strategic Benefits—Health Care Survey report from the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM).
Over the past three years, the percentage of companies indicating that their health care costs went up has remained about the same, yet high, at 69 percent to 74 percent.
To halt some of the increasing costs, one-half of organizations indicated that they increased employee contributions to health care costs in 2014, while about one-quarter (26 percent) of organizations said they planned to increase employees’ share in 2015.
Almost one-fifth (19 percent) of organizations that provide health care coverage indicated that the use of consumer-directed health plans, such as health reimbursement arrangements and health savings accounts, was the most successful tactic for controlling health care costs. About one-half of respondents said they utilized health and wellness educational initiatives (56 percent) and lower-cost generic prescription drugs (48 percent) to control costs.
The survey captured the responses of 380 randomly selected SHRM members throughout the United States.
The survey results are available online at www.shrm.org/Research/SurveyFindings/Articles/Pages/2014-SHRM-Strategic-Use-of-Benefits-Health-Care.aspx.
This survey is one of SHRM’s six-part Strategic Benefits Survey report series featuring wellness initiatives, flexible work arrangements, health care, leveraging benefits to retain employees, leveraging benefits to recruit employees, and communicating benefits. The survey series is used to determine how various employee benefits are strategically used to recruit and retain talent. Survey results on wellness initiatives and workplace flexibility also were also released today.
For more surveys and poll findings, visit shrm.org/surveys. Follow SHRM Research on Twitter @SHRM_Research.