Employee Health Plans: Beyond Kicking the Tires

Evaluating the merits of competing health insurance plans can be a time-intensive, costly, and ultimately frustrating process. There are lengthy request-for-proposal (RFP) forms to administer; myriad quality, efficiency, and cost factors to assess; and marketing spin to separate from verifiable fact.

So when Charlie Montreuil, vice president of corporate human resources for Minnetonka-based Carlson Companies, began using a new tool for evaluating health plans that was made available by the Buyers Health Care Action Group (BHCAG) in Bloomington, he knew the lives of benefits managers around the Twin Cities were about to get a little easier.

"Few companies really know what they're getting. . . for their insurance dollars."

The assessment tool, called eValue8, was developed by business coalitions and large companies across the country to help employers improve and simplify the purchasing of health plans. EValue8 asks plan providers to submit information about clinical quality and administrative efficiency so employers can compare plans against each other based on real value, not just price. Montreuil says eValue8, which he used for the first time last year, not only reduces the time and paperwork needed to evaluate insurer responses to RFPs, it brings much needed transparency to health plans’ performance on key quality and efficiency measures.

“The standardization of the tool and the efficiency with which we can evaluate health plan responses to it are big advantages,” he says. “It streamlines and simplifies what can be a cumbersome process.”