High-Deductible Health Plan Enrollment Increased From 2006 To 2016, Employer-Funded Accounts Grew In Largest Firms.

Over the past decade, employers have increasingly turned to high-deductible health plans (HDHPs) to limit health insurance premium growth. We used data from private-sector establishments for 2006 and 2016 from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey-Insurance Component to examine trends in HDHP enrollment and heterogeneity in HDHPs by firm size. We studied insurance plan offerings along the following dimensions: whether employers fund accounts to help defray employees' out-of-pocket health care spending, the availability of non-HDHP plan choices, and single and family deductible levels. We extend the literature by examining these characteristics by detailed firm-size categories and by including all plans with deductibles that met or exceeded Internal Revenue Service thresholds to be qualified for health savings accounts. We found that in 2016, 78.0 percent of HDHP enrollees in the smallest firms (those with fewer than 25 employees) lacked an employer-funded account, compared to 35.2 percent in the largest firms (those with 1,000 or more employees). Overall, HDHP enrollees in the largest firms had significant advantages relative to workers in smaller firms along all of the dimensions examined.

Substantial Churn In Health Insurance Offerings By Small Employers, 2014-15.

New data for 2014-15 from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey-Insurance Component longitudinal survey show substantial churn in insurance offers by small employers (those with fifty or fewer workers), with 14.6 percent of employers that offered insurance in 2014 having dropped it in 2015 and 5.5 percent of those that did not offer it adding coverage.

Dental Visit Utilization Procedures and Episodes of Treatment.

This investigation describes the factors associated with patients' initial decisions to seek dental care, including the corresponding number of visits and the types of services received during a dental visit episode. Data came from the nationally representative Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS). Episode-specific dental visits were further classified into three categories, based on type of services received: preventive, treatment-based, or a combination. Among individuals with a visit episode, 78% of the episodes consisted of a single visit. Within an episode, as the number of visits increased, the proportion of initial visits that were of the preventive type decreased.The findings showed that the primary driver of oral healthcare utilization in the United States is preventive care. As new health policy is developed, it is hoped that prevention will remain a central focus in dentistry and that all segments of the population will be able reap its benefits.