Zane Benefits Publishes New Information on Consumers’ Understanding of Health Insurance
Park City, Utah (PRWEB) October 05, 2013 -- Today, Zane Benefits, the number one online small business health benefits solution, published new information on consumers’ understanding of health insurance.
According to Zane Benefits’ website, a current study found that only 14% could correctly answer a quiz about basic health insurance terms. This is important because competition drives down prices and improves quality in any product. But research shows that when it comes to consumer competition, prices are not going to go down unless consumers are making informed decisions. In markets with large groups of misinformed, or naive consumers, consumers pay significantly more than the value of the product and health insurance is a prime example of this.
The recent study from Carnegie Mellon University found that the majority consumers do not understand basic health insurance concepts. In the study, ~200 respondents were first asked if they understand deductibles, co-pays, coinsurance, and out-of-pocket maximums. Next, they were then asked a multiple choice question as to what the definition of each of these terms is. Only 14% of survey respondents could answer all four of those questions correctly.
Furthermore, over 90% of respondents said they believed they understood deductibles, co-pays, and out-of-pocket maximums, when in reality, only 78% showed understanding of deductibles, 72% showed understanding of co-pays, and only 55% showed understanding of out-of-pocket maximums.
The survey continued on to ask respondents a series of multiple choice questions on the costs of specific medical services. Overall, only 58% of the questions were answered correctly.
This study concludes three key things: (1) Many people lack basic understanding on how health insurance works, (2) health insurance is confusing, and (3) most people don’t fully understand the basics of health insurance, but they believe that they do. Consumers are not in control of their heath care. Efforts need to be made to simplify and educate the general population on health care.
Click here to read the full article.
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About Zane Benefits
Zane Benefits was founded in 2006 to provide a revolutionized SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) administration platform ("ZaneHealth") for defined contribution health care. The flagship software provides a 100% paperless administration experience to small businesses and insurance professionals that want to offer better health benefits without a traditional group health insurance plan at lower costs. For more information about Zane Benefits, visit http://www.zanebenefits.com.
Christina Merhar, Zane Benefits, http://www.zanebenefits.com, 800-391-9209 6725, [email protected]
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