The next stage in the health care economy: aligning the interests of patients,providers, and third-party payers through consumer-driven health care plans

This article reviews employers' attempts over the past 25 years to address the cost and accessibility of health care services for their employees and the effect these efforts have had on U.S. health care delivery. The difficulties in aligning the interests of all parties in a third-party health beneficiary contract are examined. Many employers are considering consumer-driven health care plans as an alternative to managed care plans to both control health care costs and improve employee satisfaction. Such plans differ from fee-for-service and managed care models in terms of the economic alignment of the parties. Consumer-driven plans align the employer's economic interest with the employee/patient, and reduce health benefit costs by providing information, tools, and direct economic incentives to employees for self-management of health care dollars. Because these incentives are designed to reduce the consumption of services, providers are the party left out of economic alignment under the consumer-driven model.