Buck, an integrated HR and benefits consulting, administration, and technology services firm, today announced new research findings that indicate healthcare costs for employer-sponsored healthcare plans, including premiums for medical and prescription drug coverage, will increase at a slower rate in 2019, but will continue to outpace general inflation.
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NEW YORK, /PRNewswire/ -- Buck, an integrated HR and benefits consulting, administration, and technology services firm, today announced new research findings that indicate healthcare costs for employer-sponsored healthcare plans, including premiums for medical and prescription drug coverage, will increase at a slower rate in 2019, but will continue to outpace general inflation.
Buck's Thirty-Seventh National Healthcare Trend Survey analyzes the trend factors that health insurers, large self-funded employers, and third-party administrators use to calculate premium rates, and to project and budget future healthcare costs to employers. Health care insurers and pharmacy benefits managers report that the rate of increase for prescription drug costs (including price and utilization) are coming down by 1% overall for each group. Based on these indications, employers may expect to see their costs for prescription drugs going up, however they will be going up at a lower rate than was projected six months ago in Buck's 36th Healthcare Trends Survey. Now, according to health insurers, the increase in prescription costs is projected at 10% (vs. 11% six months ago). Employers and plan sponsors could expect to see the medical costs going up by a rate lower than was projected in the last survey as well. However, the decline in the rate of increase is not as pronounced as that for drug costs. Buck's research indicates the following:
Buck measured the projected average annual increase in employer-provided health care benefit costs for four types of plans. Medical Costs The chart below shows that medical costs are projected to increase in 2019 at rates that are lower than in its prior surveys.
More favorable claim experience and a reduction in provider reimbursement rates were cited by respondents as two key reasons for the projected slowdown in trend increases in 2019. "Although we're seeing a general slowdown in healthcare cost increases in the coming year, costs continue to rise at a rate higher than general inflation," said Harvey Sobel, FSA, a Buck principal and consulting actuary who directed the survey. "There are a number of factors that continue to drive healthcare cost increases, such as advances in high-cost medical technology, physician practice and hospital system consolidation (which gives larger healthcare organizations greater leverage in bargaining with managed care organizations), and greater usage of diagnostic tests and treatments." Prescription Drug Costs About Trend Factors Methodology Buck's 37th National Health Care Trend Survey report is published here. About Buck Media contact:
SOURCE Buck |
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