Health insurance is one of the main benefits that a company can offer its employees. But this health insurance is not necessarily used by all employees in the same way. A new study published earlier this month in the American Journal of Managed Care suggests that low-wage employees with high-deductible health care plans tend to use primary care services less than employees higher salary, while also having higher use of acute care. services.
High-deductible health plans, or HDHPs, have become popular in recent years as a replacement for traditional health plans. HDHPs are considered by some to be beneficial because they offer lower bonuses to employees. However, some have warned that HDHPs may discourage patients from seeking preventive care and may result in poorer patient outcomes as a result.
Related: A New Suggestion to Ease the Burden of High Deductibles: Split Them in Half
The new study, “Disparities in Health Care Use Among Low-Salary and High-Salary Employees,” analyzed administrative and medical data from employees of a large company to determine how low-wage employees compared to high-wage employees used their HDHPs. It found that low-wage employees, defined as those earning less than $75,000 a year, were significantly less likely to use outpatient services than higher-wage workers. However, low-wage employees were much more likely to need hospitalization or emergency services, leading to a 40% increase in emergency care spending by employees earning less than $50,000. . The study authors believe that the higher utilization of emergency care could indicate that the health conditions of low-wage patients are not as well managed as those of their higher-wage counterparts.
Other study findings include:
- High-wage employees are more likely to seek outpatient care. The highest earners tracked by the study, who earned more than $100,000 a year, were more likely to use primary care services than employees in the middle wage group earning between $75,000 and $100,000 a year .
- Low-wage employees are less likely to fill prescriptions. Employees earning less than $75,000 per year were less likely to use pharmacy services than employees with higher salaries.
- Low-wage employees see higher rates of avoidable hospital stays. Employees who earned less than $50,000 per year were more likely to use inpatient services for a preventable problem.
The study authors note that avoiding primary care services can be concerning. “This pattern of health care utilization may result in delayed diagnosis of health conditions and potentially miss the window and benefits of early diagnosis or prevention,” the authors write.
Previous research has suggested that some patients, including low-wage patients, prefer health plans with expenses more evenly distributed over time, such as traditional health plans with lower deductibles. When plans have higher deductibles, patients may have lower overall costs but will have less predictable monthly expenses, a trend that can be difficult for low-wage workers without substantial savings, the study found.
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