Overall trend looks at medical and prescription drug costs (claims and administration expenses) combined on a per employee basis year-over-year. While the average is somewhat expected, the 27% difference from highest to lowest illustrates that trend is not as linear as we might often think. Knowing your trend rate is essential, but more importantly, knowing if you are trending to the mean of per employee per year cost benchmarks or further away is critical to managing your plan.
How does your plan compare? Let us know if you would like to gain more insight into how to measure and manage your plan trend.
*From Chelko Consulting Group’s proprietary database of employer results.
“Keeping Score” is an ongoing series where we share findings from our work on employer-sponsored health plans, so you have the opportunity to compare how your plan is performing relative to others. We hope you find it beneficial. Because, after all, you can’t manage what you don’t measure.