9th Annual Arizona Employee Benefits Benchmarking Results

The results of the 9th annual Arizona Employee Benefits Benchmarking Survey of mid-size employers (50-5,000 employees), presented today at the Arizona Biltmore, showed that:

• 43 percent of employees in the Arizona survey are covered under lower-cost consumer-driven plans; 51 percent are covered under traditional copay type plans.
• In Arizona, the median deductible for traditional copay plans was $3,000 in 2022, a 50% increase from 2018.
• Median deductible for consumer-driven health plans (CDHPs) in Arizona increased to $3,500 in 2022, after being flat at $3,000 from 2017 through 2021. However, with the median employer contributions to healthcare accounts of $780 for individual and $1,500 for family plans as well as lower premiums for these plans, the net deductible for CDHPs was 35% lower for employee-only and 72% lower for family coverage than the deductible for traditional copay plans.
• National medians for both traditional copay and CDHPs were richer than Arizona median plans. However, this difference was more than offset by the lower median premiums paid by employers and employees in Arizona.
• Healthcare inflation for employee health insurance returned to 2020 levels in Arizona, after a decrease in 2021. After plan design changes, the median cost increase reported by employers for 2022 was 5 percent, compared to 4 percent in 2021.
• On a national basis, the amount spent on outpatient and pharmacy services has increased significantly. The percentage of healthcare costs for outpatient services increased from 19% in 2018 to 27% in 2022, with pharmacy spend increasing from 17% to 23% in the same period.