Overview: 2017 Employee Healthcare in Higher Education Report

Overview: 2017 Employee Healthcare in Higher Education Report

Employee

Healthcare Benefits

in Higher Education

2017

Key Findings and Summary Tables for the 2016-17 Academic Year

Citation for this report:

Bichsel, Jacqueline, and McChesney, Jasper (August 2017). Employee Healthcare Benefits in Higher Education: Key Findings and Summary Tables for the 2016-17 Academic Year. Research report. Knoxville, TN: CUPA-HR. Available from:

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OVERVIEW: EMPLOYEE HEALTHCARE BENEFITS IN HIGHER EDUCATION

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Contents

Highlights Introduction Participating Institution Characteristics Basic Healthcare Plan Offerings

Types of Basic Healthcare Plans Covered in the Survey Preferred Provider Organization (PPO) Plans Health Maintenance Organization (HMO) Plans Point of Service (POS) Plans High Deductible Health (HDH) Plans

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ALL SECTIONS AVAILABLE IN

FULL REPORT

6 6 6

A1 B1

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OVERVIEW: EMPLOYEE HEALTHCARE BENEFITS IN HIGHER EDUCATION

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Highlights

The following are highlighted results from the CUPA-HR Employee Healthcare Benefits in Higher Education Report.

The percentage of institutions offering high deductible health plans has been increasing steadily for the past three years.

More than half of institutions offer two plans; the most common plans offered are preferred provider and high deductible health plans.

The percentage of institutions offering stand-alone vision plans has been increasing steadily for the past three years.

Obergefell v. Hodges, the Supreme Court case that provided same-sex couples the right to marry in 2015, does not yet appear to have affected offerings of healthcare benefits to either same-sex or opposite-sex domestic partners.

Nearly two thirds of institutions provide healthcare benefits to retirees under 65, whereas one third provide benefits to those aged 65 and over.

After a marked decline in 2016, healthcare benefit offerings for part-time staff and faculty have increased slightly in 2017.

Although support for wellness programs sharply decreased in 2016, 2017 figures show they may be making a comeback.

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Introduction

CUPA-HR's Survey of Higher Education Employee Healthcare Benefits has been conducted since 2003. This year, we collected data on healthcare benefits only. We will collect data on retirement and tuition benefits in 2018.1

This is a crucial time to collect baseline information on healthcare benefits for future benchmarking efforts.

At the time of this report's publication, the U.S. Senate remains enmeshed in debate over whether to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA, Obamacare). Uncertainty over the future of the ACA and potential loss of access to affordable healthcare for those not currently covered by employer health plans means that institutions may need to start evaluating healthcare coverage differently.

In June 2016, the Department of Labor issued new sex discrimination regulations that apply to federal contractors and subcontractors. Some aspects of these regulations may impact current healthcare policies for certain institutions -- contractors may not maintain insurance coverage that excludes health services for gender transition; employers are required to provide pregnancy leave in a similar manner to other leave for medical conditions that affect an employee's ability to work; and family or caregiving leave must also be made available to men.2 Healthcare plans and leave policies may be changing in light of these regulations.

In 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that states may not prohibit same-sex couples from marrying, effectively conferring this right at the federal level. We discuss the impact this ruling may have on the provision of domestic partner healthcare benefits later in this report.

Institutions will want to benchmark healthcare and other benefits offerings as part of their strategy in managing the impact of these changes. CUPA-HR offers two vehicles for accessing survey results for benchmarking: aggregated survey reports such as this one, and DataOnDemand (DOD), which allows institutional users to create their own comparison groups.

This year's survey collected data on healthcare benefits only. The analyses and tables in this report cover basic healthcare plans; dental, vision, and long-term care plans; benefits for domestic partners; benefits for part-time employees and retirees; and wellness programs.

1 Non-healthcare benefits information has been collected only in even years in recent years, as that data shows less change on an annual basis.

2 Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP), Executive Order 11246: Sex Discrimination Regulations. (Obtained July 26, 2017.) United States Department of Labor.

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Participating Institution Characteristics

The information in Figure 1 summarizes the institutional characteristics of respondents on this year's Survey of Higher Education Employee Healthcare Benefits. In total, 358 institutions provided data.1 Institutions are well-represented by classification, affiliation, and region. These data show that CUPA-HR survey respondents are representative of the population of colleges and universities in the U.S.

HEALTHCARE BENEFITS IN HIGHER EDUCATION, 2017

Characteristics of Responding Institutions

30%

113

C L A S S I F I C AT I O N

20% 10%

82 73

48 42

0%

Doctoral

Master's Baccalaureate Associate's Specialty

AFFILIATION

Private Religious 88

Public

127

143

Private Independent

REGION

Midwest

Northeast

114

101

Figure 1

60

West

83

South

1 See Appendix B for a list of all participating institutions. Some of these institutions are systems that provided data for multiple campuses.

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