I saw a story on Yahoo! a couple of days ago that reported that consumers prefer PPOs and HMOs to CDHPs. Having used all of these options myself, I thought the article was pretty interesting, especially because I happen to prefer CDHPs. The article was quoting a recent study conducted by the Center for Studying Health System Change.

Some of the key points found in the study were that, surprisingly, almost 40% of all workers who are offered a CDHP plan have only that plan to choose from. Yet, when workers are offered a choice of plans, less than 20% opt for a CDHP.

I’ve written about my experiences with Lumenos’s CDHP and how I discovered that all my coworkers had opted for PPO and HMO plans instead, because they didn’t understand how the CDHP plan worked, even though the plan cost less and gave much more flexibility than the other two options we were offered. The following quote from the Yahoo! article, pretty much sums it up:

Experts have said the plans will bring down health care costs because they make patients more financially accountable for their spending decisions. However, the study shows that people aren’t necessarily anxious for that responsibility, said Jon Gabel, a study author and vice president of the center. “Most Americans are risk averse. They don’t like making financial decisions.”

It just goes to show that whether you’re trying to find a stock to invest in, find lower auto insurance, or choose a health plan, you can often do better or save more money if you put in some extra time and effort to understand the options available to you. Our employers currently don’t offer a CDHP plan, so we’ve opted for a PPO instead. It’s fine, no big complaints, it certainly covers much less than Lumenos did.

That being said, a CDHP plan might not be necessarily right for everyone. Someone left an understandably angry comment on my Lumenos CDHP post, which was directed at the company for not covering a particular type of treatment. While figuring out an insurance plan is about as interesting as watching paint dry, it’s important to find one that’s right for you.

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