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Abstract
Health insurance enrollment is a critical decision that can have large financial and health-related impacts. Low health insurance literacy and lack of knowledge about how to choose a plan are the main challenges during enrollment decision-making. This has led to the development of many digital sources of health insurance information, including Virtual Benefits Counselors (VBCs) that mimic the intervention of human resources counselors. However, we still do not understand how the enrollment decision process is impacted by these decision aids. Therefore, the overall goal of this pilot research project is to understand the effectiveness of digital information and VBCs in helping individuals make informed health insurance enrollment decisions. For this preliminary work, we first discuss the results of a survey to understand the main sources of health insurance information for University of Florida (UF) employees. Then, we explain the design a user study that aims to evaluate mock enrollment decisions made using VBCs versus official benefits websites and show preliminary results of 6 participants. From the survey, we learned that the main source of information accessed by employees during the enrollment process were the official UF and state of Florida websites and secondly, UF's VBC and friends or family. From the user study, participants were overall frustrated with the VBC system but those with more experience with health insurance had a clear strategy of the information they were seeking.
Keywords
Health insurance; enrollment; decision aids; virtual benefits counselors; literacy
1Introduction
Health insurance enrollment is a difficult financial decision that has large health impacts. It directly affects subsequent healthcare decisions such as choice of provider, choice of treatment, etc. Studies have shown that only 4% of the U.S. population accurately understands basic health insurance terminology (e.g., deductible, premium, co-pay, etc.) [1], and this lack of knowledge is the main barrier to financially efficient health insurance enrollment [2]. Another barrier to effective enrollment decisions is the lack of knowledge about how to choose a plan. Informed health insurance decision making requires access to accurate information about the available plans, health insurance literacy, and guidance about how to choose plans based on the individuals' needs. There are a variety of different sources of information available including consulting with friends and family, consultations with benefits counselors provided...
