HDDP: What It Means, the Challenge, & What Needs To Be Done To Make It More Affo

Posted by harveyspectar on January 2nd, 2020

High Deductible Health Plans (HDDP) are private health insurance plans that feature a large deductible essentially before your insurance kicks in. One popular example is Medicare Advantage - Medical Savings Account (MSA) plan. High deductible health plans are similar to auto insurance that most people have where you have to pay a certain amount before your insurance will start paying for the rest. There are nearly 40% of Americans with private health insurance who were enrolled in a high deductible Medicare Advantage plan in San Marcos. So, these plans are becoming increasingly common. They tend to be less costly for employers and in some cases for patients or consumers. And they seek to encourage patients to be more active, judicious, cost-conscious healthcare consumers.

The Challenge
One major challenge with high-deductible health plans is people going without healthcare that they desperately need. Research has shown that when people move into a high deductible health plan, they tend to decrease their use of most healthcare services.

What that means is people getting fewer low-value services that are unlikely to improve their health outcomes or could lead to unnecessary harm and cost, which is a good thing, but also going without the higher value healthcare services that they need. That's why there are a lot more efforts that are needed to help patients work with their providers when they're in a high-deductible health plan.

Strategies to Make High Deductible Health Care Plans More Affordable
There are a few things that can be done to make high deductible Medicare Advantage plans in Escondido more affordable, and help patients’ access services that are most likely to improve their health outcomes. Things like saving for care that people know they're going to need in the future. Talking to their provider about how much a service is going to cost them, and whether or not it's actually worth the expense. Using online tools or apps and smart phones to figure out how much services might cost them at different places and then making decisions based on that information. Or even in some cases, negotiating what they might pay for a particular service that's not an emergency service, but something that they may need in the future.

To get the care they need at the lowest possible cost, private health insurance buyers must do a thorough comparison of different plans and choose a plan that best meets their requirements.