By Interpro Publications Inc
WASHINGTON D.C. — Summary: Private health exchanges are a growing topic at industry conferences, but there is little known yet about attitudes towards them across health plan leaders. This query identifies some core attitudes towards Private HIXs across a representative sample of health plans and those who sell to or
advise health plans. Overall, there is strong support for the idea of private exchanges as a marketing channel and alternative to existing channels, but there are still questions about their scope and impact.
The term “private health exchanges” rose into the lexicon this year after Aon Hewitt and Bloom Health unveiled products and signed up multiple large health payers. Other products are now arriving and discussed as alternatives to state exchanges. The concept is essentially a new version of the business coalition model, except that it:
WASHINGTON D.C. — Summary: Private health exchanges are a growing topic at industry conferences, but there is little known yet about attitudes towards them across health plan leaders. This query identifies some core attitudes towards Private HIXs across a representative sample of health plans and those who sell to or
advise health plans. Overall, there is strong support for the idea of private exchanges as a marketing channel and alternative to existing channels, but there are still questions about their scope and impact.
The term “private health exchanges” rose into the lexicon this year after Aon Hewitt and Bloom Health unveiled products and signed up multiple large health payers. Other products are now arriving and discussed as alternatives to state exchanges. The concept is essentially a new version of the business coalition model, except that it:
- (a) uses a defined contribution exclusively,
- (b) offers taxadvantaged account products exclusively, and
- (c) seems to target the cross-border ASO market.
The public health insurance exchanges are the American Health Benefits Exchange (AHBE) and the Small Business Health Options Program (SHOP), the so-called “HIX” health insurance exchanges under the 2010 reform law. In addition, there are now calls for private all-payer pricing schemes that resemble
insurance exchanges, an expansion of existing state insurance exchanges like Utah and Florida, and price transparency systems that are in effect private health insurance exchanges.
Methodology: IPI sent an email invitation to participate in an online query to a group of 703 subscribers and company LinkedIn connections. This invitee list included top-level health plan executives (SVP or senior manager level) representing companies with over 80 percent of the U.S. private insurance market, national health benefit consulting and accounting firms, large and small technology vendors, key financial analysts, health plan associations, and health economists.
The response generated a statistically-valid sample of the group at a 99 percent confidence level with less than a 3 percent error rate.
All replies were anonymous. The query asked four True or False questions about Private Health Exchanges, and also queried degree of impact for three industry segments affected by such exchanges. the first set of questions elicited the following results:
The second set of questions elicited the follolwing results:
Discussion
The query identified strong support across the health plan industry for the idea of private health exchanges. Almost 80 percent of health plan industry opinion leaders now agree that Private HIXs will be “a good marketing channel for many health plans,” and almost 75 percent agree that they “will probably become
market-wide.”
A majority of respondents see a “major impact” on health plans (62 percent), while fewer than half see a major impact on state exchanges and employers. Almost nobody in the health plan industry thinks that private health exchanges will have “no real impact” on these payers.
A caveat voiced at the recent conferences is that Private HIXs may only end up attracting large national employers. There was a 60-40 percent respondent split on whether they will attract all-sized employers. There was even less agreement on whether Private HIXs will offer “lower premiums than public exchanges.” Only a little over half (54.8 percent) saw this as likely, showing uncertainty about the HIX impact on overall market pricing despite the strong attraction as a new marketing channel.
