Insights from the 2018 Willis Towers Watson Best Practices in Health Care Survey
Progressive health systems are targeting the employer/commercial market for profitable growth opportunities. While their focus has traditionally been on supporting physical health and wellbeing, more systems are taking a cue from employers’ increased focused on integrated wellbeing, realizing that broadening efforts can lead to differentiation.
Understanding integrated wellbeing
The concept of integrated wellbeing focuses on social, emotional and financial dimensions, in addition to the physical one. Each of these dimensions is interrelated. Increasingly, employers are acknowledging the importance of integrated wellbeing, and are providing benefit packages that integrate elements across each of the four areas. According to the 2018 Willis Towers Watson Best Practices in Health Care Employer Survey, 41% of employers say they have made progress on enhancing employees’ integrated wellbeing over last three years, and 82% think it’s important to do so over next three years.
Embracing the concept of integrated wellbeing is a savvy move for a health system as employers make up a large proportion of their book of business. It’s no wonder they’re taking notice as health systems can actively weave in components of integrated wellbeing to differentiate their offerings relatively easily. It would entail leveraging their value-based programs to improve wellbeing across each of the four dimensions: physical, emotional, financial and social.
Physical wellbeing
While health systems have traditionally focused on physical wellbeing, being aware of opportunities to do more to manage population health risks and chronic conditions is essential for remaining competitive. A greater focus on emerging trends in care coordination can reduce costs and improve outcomes. The 2018 Willis Towers Watson Best Practices in Health Care Employer Survey found that 48% of employers currently sponsor programs or pilots that target specific conditions or high-cost cases, while 80% plan to do so within three years. Health systems can build programs with a greater focus on lifestyle behavior choices to improve health and avoid preventable diseases. Further, 43% of employers indicated an interest in innovative companies with connected devices for members with chronic conditions. This indicates an appetite for solutions that health systems can provide or partner on, outside of traditional provider models.
Health systems should review ways to build solutions that integrate a broader understanding of physical wellbeing ─ from progressive approaches to managing clinical conditions to programs that support healthy lifestyle choices.
Financial wellbeing
As employers look for ways to manage the financial impact of health care on themselves and their employees, there are opportunities for health systems to participate in managing costs. With the increased prevalence of high deductible health plans and individuals’ additional responsibility for first dollar coverage, attention to financial wellbeing is increasingly salient. Health systems can support financial wellbeing in light of this by providing greater price transparency. A third of employers surveyed in our “Best Practices” survey currently offer price/quality transparency tools for health services or products through a carve-out vendor, with another 5% planning to do so in 2019 and 16% considering it for 2020.
Employers are focused on offering options for health care that are cost effective to employees, thereby reducing financial strain. Beyond transparency, health systems should be prepared to participate in high performance or narrow networks. These plans with limited choice typically can provide employers and their employees significant cost savings. Our survey found that over the next three years, 51% of employers are planning to offer employees a high-performance network option (i.e., a narrow network of higher quality and lower cost providers).
Additionally, health systems can offer urgent care centers and telehealth solutions as less costly alternatives to ER visits. Improved care coordination can help to avoid unnecessary readmissions or other more serious care needs. Bundled payments, or pre-determined rates for an entire episode of care, are another approach that can help to control costs, with 26% of employers noting they have or plan to have bundled payments in their medical plans within the next three years. Health systems should review which of these options would be most impactful in their own respective markets to support the financial wellbeing of the population served.
Emotional wellbeing
Employers are increasingly recognizing the importance of emotional wellbeing in recent years and its relationship to physical health, but health systems’ involvement in behavioral health can varies widely. Structural elements, such as whether there are behavioral health practitioners in a network or connections to other accessible resources, are a foundational step health systems should review.
Health systems also have opportunities to improve emotional wellbeing through programs that reside at the intersection of emotional and physical wellbeing — such as chronic pain and certain behavioral health conditions.
There is interest in emotional wellbeing support through these avenues by employers. According to our
“Best Practices” survey, 26% of employers are planning in 2019, or considering for 2020, to offer programs for coping with chronic pain. Meanwhile, in addition to the 39% of employers currently offering programs to support chronic behavioral health conditions, another 7% are planning to for 2019, and 19% are considering them for 2020. Health systems can assess their local markets to pinpoint unmet demand and target their solutions.
Social wellbeing
Health systems can also offer group-centered prevention programs for managing chronic health issues as a means of promoting social wellbeing. With 81% of hospitals we surveyed offering onsite classes and group programs (i.e., new parents, weight loss, nutrition education, exercise, stress reduction) to their employees, there may be further opportunities to leverage health systems’ dual role as employer and provider by designing offerings that can be expanded to the market. Health systems should look to their own group-centered programs to see where they can be replicated and packaged into solutions for their employers’ populations.
Leveraging integrated wellbeing for profitable growth
Packaging solutions and aligning discrete efforts to create a well-articulated integrated wellbeing offering is vital to the success of health systems. Upon determining the best approach, a number of elements should be considered, including the following:
- A thorough understanding of the employers in the area and their needs
- Integration of wellbeing considerations in Requests for Information (RFIs) and Requests for Proposals (RFPs) for services, and crafting a strong RFI/RFP response
- A clear articulation of the diverse solutions to be presented as an integrated wellbeing product offering
- Familiarization with the key metrics and value propositions across each dimension of integrated wellbeing
As health systems take new approaches to drive overall patient health and remain competitive in a changing marketplace, addressing integrated wellbeing provides a major advantage for the system, as well as for the employers and employees served by it.
*The 23rd Annual Willis Towers Watson Best Practices in Health Care Employer Survey was completed by 687 U.S. employers with at least 100 employees between June and July 2018. It reflects respondents’ 2018 health plan decisions and strategies as well as expected changes for 2019 and 2020. For consistency with prior years’ surveys, results provided in this report are primarily based on 554 employers, each with at least 1,000 employees. Collectively they employ 11.4 million employees and operate in all major industries.
Contact
Jessica Jones
312.873.5126
jessica.jones@willistowerswatson.com