Mars versus Venus – HDHP variation

Ideally, we’d all get individualized or personalized healthcare, but we’re still years away from that happening.  But, there are several basics about segmenting individuals which are relevant.  One of them is that men and women are different in how they experience healthcare.  Another one is that different plan designs drive different behaviors.

With those in mind, I found an article in the June 2014 Money magazine interesting.  It pointed out that while both men and women reduce their use of the emergency room with high-deductible plans that it varies.  As you can see from the table below, this is especially relevant for high-severity issues where men dramatically reduce their use of the ER which can lead to significant issues.

You can see a few studies on this topic here:

• http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23685403
• http://www.ebri.org/publications/notes/index.cfm?fa=notesDisp&content_id=5381