Health care consumerism is about more than high-deductible plans. The best-performing companies are using various tactics to engage employees and lower cost trends because they recognize that all employees may not be driven by financial...

The 8.5 percentage-point gap in cost increases between a best-performing and a poor-performing company is very significant. Through focused initiatives such as building data warehouses and using hard-dollar ROI calculations, best-performing companies lower cost trends,...

Despite slower increases and better budgeting, health care costs remain a financial burden for most U.S. employers. Employers need to think strategically about ways to control their health care costs, and they need to evaluate...

Rather than using financial incentives to encourage seriously ill hospital patients to reduce plan spending, directing them to high-quality delivery centers will be far more effective in making them better consumers and controlling plan costs....