Driving Down Health Care Costs: Ideas and Strategies. - book reviews

Healthcare Financial Management, Sept, 1989 by Vivian Kay Thompson

Driving Down Health Care Costs: Ideas and Strategies

"Today, the costs of benefits to the business community generally exceed 35 percent of payroll, and for some companies, these costs are 50 percent of payroll. The average cost of employee health benefits rose 7.7 percent in 1986, pushing the annual liability for health care up to $1,857 per employee."

These are alarming statistics to employers struggling to control escalating healthcare costs. This book could be a helpful tool in that effort.

Encompassing key areas such as managed care, wellness programs, employee education programs, flexible benefits plans, utilization review and quality assurance, catastrophic illness programs, cost containment audits, and retiree medical benefits, this compilation glides through the complex territory of cost containment strategies using checklists, step-by-step action plans, audit guidelines, and exhibits from sample health benefit plans.

Written by healthcare benefits experts, the 12 chapters are succinct, and some include summaries and extensive reference lists. For example, the chapter titled "Corporate Involvement in Health Care Marketplace: Risks and Opportunities" alerts compensation and benefits professionals to the potential effects of preferred provider organizations on the quality of and access to medical care and suggests techniques to avert and contain the risks of cost containment programs. "HMO Pricing Alternatives" addresses overpayment and suggests alternate rating approaches. Another chapter delineates the questions and answers needed to properly manage healthcare plans.

In the tussle for effective cost containment strategies, "today's benefits environment requires a proactive approach to healthcare cost containment." This bird's-eye view succeeds in navigating with many proactive strategies and in stopping at relevant destinations.

Reviewed by Vivian Kay Thompson, vice president, Information and Research Center, Dallas-Ft. Worth Hospital Council, Irving, Tex.