NEW YORK, N.Y., July 27 – Only 55 percent of employers who offer Health Reimbursement Account(HRA) plans will maintain them next year, and 45 percent of those with HRAs will either add a Health Savings Account (HSA) option, or replace their HRAs with HSAs, according to a Buck Consultants national survey of U.S. employers on Consumer Driven Health Care.

Bucks study HRA/HSA Survey for Consumer Driven Health Care Plans analyzed responses from more than 130 U.S. organizations on CDHC plans " those characterized by a high-deductible health plan coupled with either a Health Reimbursement Account or a Health Savings Account.

The majority of employers believe health care costs will decline if employees purchase care with funds deposited into an HSA they control, said Robert Burnett, principal in Bucks health and welfare consulting practice. He added that respondents feel that HSAs control costs more effectively than HRAs (46 percent vs. 13 percent), and that HSAs are more attractive to employees than HRAs (52 percent vs. 23 percent).

Survey respondents cited four components that they believed to be crucial to a successful CDHC program with an HSA:

Aggressive and coordinated education campaigns are crucial to program success;

Higher rates of participation are achieved when accounts are pre-funded by the employer at the start of each year;

The health plan and the HSA custodian must fully integrate claims;

Multiple investment fund choices.

Eighty-five percent of employers cite offering CDHC plans because of the reduced costs, and 56 percent cite exposing employees to the true cost of health care, according to the survey.