Consumer-driven health care plans, most notably Health Savings Accounts and high deductible plans, are designed to reduce costs for employers and insurance providers. The concept is that putting responsibility of health care cost and decision making into the hands of employees will make them more cost-conscious consumers of medical services.

But decisions made in the dark can easily go the wrong way. We reviewed this underserved market, and created a solution that provides companies of any size, in particular the smaller company, with the tools and resources needed to assist their employees. The result is a comprehensive employer-sponsor portal, serving as a centralized resource center where employees can conveniently perform a variety of HR tasks. It's a "life management assistant" for modern employees.


Implemented with a "step by step" philosophy, companies and their HR staff can provide employees with support and tools they need.

Step 1: Education
To use a health plan wisely, the employee must understand how it works, what the rules and costs are, and have easy access to all the forms and documents needed. 

Step 2: Decision support and enrollment
One goal of your HR team is to help employees choose their plans and enroll in them efficiently. Providing a Web-based enrollment system in which employees can evaluate, enroll and confirm elections is both time and cost efficient. A survey conducted by the global consulting firm Watson Wyatt showed that 60 percent of respondents preferred receiving benefits information via the Web.

Step 3: Health and wellness education
Many Internet users look online for health information. But not all information is created equally. It makes a difference when employees have a centralized resource to find unbiased, ad-free health information and have education to prevent and manage disease at their disposal.  We use content written by a group of physicians, clinicians and specialists, which then goes through a stringent review process by a non-biased third-party physician review network. Information is current, accurate and relevant and written in such a way that the consumer is able to understand.

Step 4: Health management
Employees must be encouraged to actively manage their own well-being. To manage their health, employees should have personal tools to help assess health risks, check symptoms, evaluate treatment options and organize personal health records.

Step 5: Account management
Having online access to Health Savings Account balances, as well as calculators and financial modelers to help with estimations, makes it easy and convenient for employees to keep finances in check. These financial tools should be integrated with those already mentioned.

Step 6: Provider quality
While provider quality rating tools are available, the market has a long way to go to helping people evaluate where to seek care. You can indirectly help with the process by educating employees on what to look for. We envision a not-too-distant time when such evaluations will happen through employer-sponsored portals.
 
Step 7: Cost negotiation
The pinnacle will come when the consumer becomes more empowered to better predict and negotiate medical costs in advance. For now, online tools can help him estimate those costs. Again, market forces need to revamp the system to bring transparency to the real costs of medical services. Only then can patients use price as a criteria for selecting the most appropriate doctors.

Any company vying for talent in today's tight labor market has to go the extra mile and provide recruits and workers solid support through employee portals. There is a lot to be gained by shifting these HR functions to an online environment. 

Kevin Noland is CEO of A.D.A.M. Inc., a leading provider of health information and benefits management solutions to health care organizations, employers, consumers, brokers, and educational institutions.