SPOTLIGHT: Making smart CDHP members


During a speech at the Pittsburgh Business Group on Health, Ann Mond Johnson, president of Chicago-based Subimo, identified employers' responsibilities to their employees if they offer CDHPs instead of traditional health plans. Simply providing the health plans isn't enough: Employers must also make their employees smarter healthcare consumers, which means making sure that they have access to cost and quality data. Ms. Johnson heads a company that compiles publicly-available quality and price data and markets it to CDHP members. While she recognizes there are barriers to preventing consumers from effectively shopping for healthcare, she thinks that the more data there is available, the more employers will turn to CDHPs to cut their costs. According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, "Ms. Johnson predicted a day will come when consumers book their surgeries much as they do airline flights on Orbitz.com." But maybe not quite yet. Report