Survey Offers Health Care Benefit Benchmarks

A 2010 Health Care Benefits Benchmark Survey published by Abbott, Langer and ERI, covering data from 183 respondents, offers some helpful information to companies looking for some health care benchmarks.

A few select findings from the executive summary:

PPOs remain the most popular medical plan and DPPOs the most popular dental plan offering

Three most prevalent medical plan offerings-

Preferred Provider Organizations (PPOs) - 48%

Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs) - 24%

High Deductible Health Plans (HDHPs) - 11%

Three most prevalent dental plan offerings-

Dental Preferred Provider Organizations (DPPOs) - 63%

Dental Maintenance Organizations (DMOs) - 20%

Dental Indemnity - 10%

Most organizations offer more than one medical plan; most offer only one dental plan

40% of respondents offer only one medical plan to employees, 34% offer two and 19% offer three.

73% of respondents offer only one dental plan to employees, 26% offer two.

Employee and Employer Costs

For PPOs, which are the most prevalent type of primary medical plan, the average monthly employee cost for employee only coverage is $106.49.  The average monthly employer cost for employee only coverage is $382.89.

For DPPOs, which are the most prevalent type of dental plan, the average employee monthly contribution for employee only coverage is $15.37.  The average employer monthly contribution for employee only coverage is $27.34.

Additional findings and benchmarks are available in the executive summary of the survey report.

Image: Creative Commons Photo "Doctor Themed Cupcakes" by clevercupcakes

Comments

[wench costume]

This is a pretty reliable survey. Great information you have here. Thanks for sharing. ;)

[I Need Money Desperately]

Kudos for posting this one. Really informative. Keep up the good work!

[Ed Smith]

Hi, Ann,

I have worked in employee benefits for over 25 years and I have never seen this survey used before or heard of the companies that did it. Benefits professionals use surveys from Hewitt Associates and Radford for this type of information. They survey three to four times the number of companies and supply more detail. Many benefits professionals rely on the surveys done by the Kaiser Family Health Foundation, which are of high quality and free.

Ed

[Ann Bares]

Ed:

Both Abbott Langer and ERI have been around a very long time - but are better known for their pay surveys than benefits. I certainly know of the surveys from Hewitt and Radford ... and that done by the Kaiser Foundation. Part of my aim with this blog is to bring free, useful information to my readers on reward topics - not everyone works in a place where they can afford or have access to the kinds of surveys done by Hewitt and Radford. I am not, nor do I ever pretend to be a benefits expert - but I try to call attention to useful information in that field wherever I can.

With that in mind, I also did a post awhile back on no-to-low-cost benefit surveys, which included the Kaiser one....

http://compforce.typepad.com/compensation_force/2009/07/checking-over-that-benefit-package-a-few-no-to-low-cost-surveys.html

Wench and INMD - thanks for the comments, much appreciated!!

[Julie Tople]

www.ubabenefits.com-has the largest benchmarking survey available. Go to their website to find a UBA Advisor near you. I believe it's 2.5 times the size of Watson Wyatt, Kaiser, Milliman combined.

[Ann Bares]

Thanks, Julie. Readers, please note that the UBA survey is not free - $1800 or $900 if you work through a UBA advisor - but probably a good value for the money if it is in fact bigger than the others.