What's The Purpose of Health Plan Surveys?
October 13, 2015
Get ready. We are about to get knee deep in the annual benefits open enrollment season. This includes open enrollments for Medicare, healthcare.gov and private sector health plans.
This is also the time of year that health care and health insurance policy wonks and writers comb through the latest health insurance surveys. The producers of these surveys include non-profits dedicated to health research and policy; employee benefits consulting firms, private research firms and human resource management associations.
Some of the organizations providing these surveys include:
- Kaiser Employer Health Benefits Survey
- Bureau of Labor Statistics Employee Benefits Survey
- Marsh & McLennan Mid-Market Group Benefits Survey
- SHRM Employee Benefits Survey
- Mercer's National Survey of Employer-Sponsored Health Plans
The Surveys Are Detailed, But Are The Responses…
The data for these surveys comes from hundreds of employers willing to complete detailed survey questionnaires. The surveys can take hours to complete but the most challenging part is deciphering the meaning of some of the questions. I know. I completed more of these surveys than I care to remember.
The survey questions require providing monthly health plan premiums for the current and prior years. Data for other benefit plans like dental, vision, life and disability insurance are also collected. And these days all of the established surveys include questions about the Affordable Care Act and wellness programs. Benefit plan participation rates are another important data component for these surveys.
And like I said, these surveys require detailed responses. For example, because plan participation can fluctuate from month-to-month, survey respondents have to either gather all of their monthly premium bills or search their payroll or human resource information system databases to answer the seemingly simple question: “How many eligible employees participated in the most popular health plan in 2014?” Not every survey respondent will interpret the question the same. Some will provide the average participation rate for the year. Some the median participation rate… Some the highest month’s participation rate for the year…
The bottom line is that the surveying organizations must rely on the diligence of human resource department personnel to maintain accurate records and take the time and effort to access, manipulate and report data. Fortunately, many HR departments are up to the task, but many are not. Which makes me wonder how representative, and useful, is this survey data.
Conclusion
Despite their potential accuracy issues, health plans surveys are an interesting read for those interested in health plan policy and research or those who write about it. But how do they help inform the average person who is not a health plan researcher, writer or policy nerd. They don't make health insurance or the health care system easier to understand or more affordable. So what good are they?
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Denise Perkins
