Can A Healthcare Alliance Bring Down Healthcare Costs To Employers?

The rising cost of healthcare and prescription medicine in the United States has been a burden to the nation's employers, forced to shoulder those costs when they provide healthcare benefits to their employees.

However, in an effort to better understand the industry's supply chain and provide greater transparency, 20 big name companies have come together to form the Health Transformation Alliance, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Health Transformation Alliance

The group's members come from a wide variety of industries and include names like The Coca-Cola Co KO, Caterpillar Inc. CAT, Macy's, Inc. M and Verizon Communications Inc. VZ.

The goal of the alliance is to reduce healthcare costs by sharing data and figuring out the most effective way to provide employee benefits and ensure that conditions are treated effectively. To begin with, the Alliance is looking to compare provider costs and patient outcomes; by 2017, the group is hoping to roll out a data sharing plan that will help reduce the cost of prescription medicine as well.

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Better Health Coverage

The data is expected to give companies a better idea of which treatments and healthcare providers were effective in treating specific illnesses. That way, companies can direct their employees to preferred providers in order to receive the best value for their money.

Varied Effects For Insurers

For the insurance industry, such an alliance has both positives and negatives. Insurers would benefit from aggregated data that gives them a better idea about treatment outcomes, but a joint effort from several different companies could drive prices downward.

By banding together, the 20 companies that make up the Heath Transformation Alliance will have more bargaining power to negotiate better priced plans for their organizations.

Image Credit: Public Domain
Posted In: NewsHealth CareMarketsTrading IdeasGeneralhealth Transformation Alliance
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