In recent years, the drive toward encouraging consumerism in employee healthcare plans has gained strength. As they realize that they must take steps to rein in costs, companies implement health reimbursement accounts, raise deductibles, and utilize any and all the other cost-shifting techniques being touted by experts.

Yet, employees are sometimes reluctant to enroll in a high-deductible plan that depends on their own ability to be savvy consumers. "If the new plan is an unknown, employees will stay where they are," says Daryl Ashley, vice president of strategy and solutions at Workscape (www.workscape.com). "If you remove that unknown through good information, they'll take a leap for you."

Possibly more significant than the design of the plan, says Ashley, is the way in which the plan is communicated. A benefits manager first decides what kind of plan to implement, and then determines the pricing strategy, he says. "As soon as I've made those decisions, I have to move onto communication, for two reasons. First, you made this election (to offer a consumer-driven health plan), so obviously you want to steer people there. And without good reason, employees won't be steered there. Communication creates that reason.

"Secondly, now that the employee is in that model, the employer has a responsibility, because now the employee is spending their own money, to make them a better, more informed consumer. That burden has not been placed on the employee in such a strong way in the past. So the employee will feel alienated or taken advantage of if he or she isn't prepared to deal with that new responsibility."

So what are some of the specific ways you can effectively communicate a consumer-driven health plan? Ashley suggests that, first and foremost, you abandon the status quo. "The old methods of communication, sending out materials in newsletters and things, are not going to get it done here," he says. "You need timely, personalized information that's appropriate to the employee's specific situation. For example, if the employee is hypertensive, they need to have access immediately to information on high blood pressure. The keeper of the technology--in this case, that's Workscape--knows the situation of the employee and makes sure to present the right content for the right person at the right time."

Good communication is working. "In the last couple of years [the number of our clients implementing consumer-driven plans] has grown; now 65 percent to 70 percent of our clients are implementing some sort of consumer-driven strategy. And the numbers of employees who are enrolling in those plans is growing as well. Compared to just a few years ago, that number is about four times what it was then."