Areas of interest to employers include behavioral health, musculoskeletal services, and welfare programs.However, utilization of psychiatric services increased by 32%. This is the largest increase in utilization of service subcategories. With the addition of modest price increases, spending increased by 43%.
The pandemic has revolutionized the way consumers engage in the healthcare system. The spillover effects of these changes will be felt not only for the rest of 2022, but for the future as well.
“What really stands out to me is that even if the pandemic ends tomorrow, the health effects of the pandemic will remain here,” said Chris Whey, a health economist at RAND Corporation. increase. “The pandemic has had the greatest impact on American society in terms of health outcomes and the economy since World War II.”
Whaley was part of a panel discussion on the new Workforce Health Index of San Francisco-based healthcare navigation company Castlight. Castlight CEO Maeve O’Meara shared the top-line results of the report.
Related: Five factors that may increase or decrease medical expenses in 2022
“One of the highlights of this report is that they have different employers, different regions and different populations. Look at the data,” she said. “Point 1 is that preventive care has not been fully revived and employers need to take advantage of proven incentives and the like to promote the use of preventive care. ..
“Point 2 is that preventive care usually leads to conversations about primary care and behavioral health. What is exciting about the data is that behavioral health is an issue that has been effectively addressed in many respects. It is clear that the perception is among employers, but it means that we need to think about subgroups such as adolescence. “
Castlight analyzed over 160 million medical claims, employer investments in digital programs, data from ecosystem partners, and response to plan sponsors’ health risk assessments. We focused on medical costs rather than pharmaceutical costs because the pandemic had a disproportionate impact on the use of medical services. Commercial health costs have steadily increased over the last decade until 2020, when the pandemic overturned this historic trend. Annual spending per member increased by 7.1% from 2018 to 2019.
“As a result of the pandemic, spending for people with commercial insurance has dropped by almost 7% in 2020,” said Dr. Dena Bravata, Chief Medical Officer and lead author of the report at Castlight. “That spending has essentially recovered to pre-pandemic levels. One of the key findings of this report is that we expect it to level off for the rest of the year.”
The report provided some important points.
Employees and their families are more ill than they were before the pandemic. The clinical risk for this population increased by 9.3% from 2019 to 2021. The risk in this population was expected to increase by only 3% based on the aging of the cohort during the period, so the increase in disease burden was tripled. What was expected?
Reductions in preventive care spending during a pandemic are projected to recover in 2022, but have not reached pre-pandemic levels. “Preventive services are an important category of reduced spending during a pandemic,” Brabata said. “Unfortunately, we haven’t recovered to pre-pandemic levels. This is especially worrisome for self-insurance employers who want to make sure their members have the necessary preventative services. Without this, future costs I think we expect a dramatic increase in
The use of telemedicine has accelerated, shifting to virtual primary care and state management. “One of the most permanent changes from a pandemic is the incredible increase in telemedicine services,” she said. “Most telemedicine services before the pandemic were for lung-related problems. As a result of the pandemic, telemedicine services exploded 30-fold in 2020. There are two other important changes. One is that it is the general clinician who provides these services.
The second change is that behavioral health constitutes a huge amount of telemedicine visits in this population. “”Telemedicine services are down about 13% from last year, but still 25 times the pre-pandemic rate, “Bravata said.
The gap in primary care use is even more pronounced in low-income communities. People in low-income areas give up care more often than people in wealthy areas.
Ryan Schmid, CEO of Vera Whole Health, said: “There is no one-size-fits-all approach. We need to think about how this access model and personalized engagement and outreach in the financial industry can support the ability to meet people today and create programs to meet their relevant needs. there is.”
Significant increases in employee demand for behavioral medical services are expected to continue. “There was a steady march long before the pandemic of rising behavioral health care costs,” Bravata said. “There was a bit of a bump in 2020, but it wasn’t as dramatic as people thought. On the one hand, the increase in behavioral health care costs is good. These are the care they need. People. But it is also a reflection of the fact that more people need behavioral health services. “
Demand for musculoskeletal services is expected to deteriorate in the pandemic and grow in 2022. “In 2020, musculoskeletal care fell a bit, but now it’s back to pre-pandemic levels,” she said. “This has been the first category of spending in the last five years, followed by cancer treatment.”
Investment in health and welfare programs is growing. Employers are steadily increasing their investment in digital health programs. In 2021, the average employer provided employees with more than 12 digital programs.
Despite the challenges, panelists are bright about where the industry is heading in the next five to ten years.
“The fact that there is such a decrease in preventive care and an increase in behavioral health problems can cause tsunamis with negative consequences and will be spent in the future,” Schmidt said. “It’s a risk, but it also creates opportunities. One thing that has been strengthened is that you can’t separate society from the mind and the body. There is a growing demand for solution integration.
“The fact that employers are starting to demand the ability to pay for results as well as services is really important. You will see suppliers catch up with demand in a really powerful way for our society.”
