James McLaren knew that communication and education would be an integral part of implementing a CDHP system at his office, but he didn’t realize how important follow-up meetings and seminars would be. After the pre-implementation sessions, James eased up on meetings; he assumed his employees would get the hang of their new healthcare accounts as they used them. For the most part, this was true—the transition went quite smoothly. James was getting positive feedback, and his employees were happy with the new health plan.

About 2 months after implementation, a few employees came forward with questions. James figured he could do some research and answer each question individually, but if one person was wondering about something, wasn’t it likely that more people were wondering the same thing? James got in touch with his insurer and set up a follow-up seminar for the next week, requesting that all employees attend.

Most of the questions were about basic usage of the account, issues like “Who do I send my payment to?” and “Should I ever be paying cash at the pharmacy?” Near the end of the meeting, Suzanne from the accounting department raised her hand—she had a question about her EOB. She brought it up to the front of the room and showed it to the representative, pointing out a particular charge. Two weeks ago, she’d gone to the doctor for her flu shot, and she was under the impression that preventive care was treated differently than regular care on her invoice. Did her flu shot not qualify as preventive care?

As a matter of fact, it did. All the employees, as well as James himself, learned a valuable lesson that day. Not every health plan treats preventive care the same as regular care, so doctors and nurses often miscode preventive services, which causes the insurer to charge patients deductible expenses for which they are not responsible. Users should always look over their EOB statements carefully to ensure they haven’t been charged for services they shouldn’t have been. Remind CDHP users to check the services listed for accuracy.

James realized that issues such as this might arise again. Of course, he couldn’t plan an office-wide meeting every time a question was posed, but he made sure to send out memos and post notices so that the education process continued long after implementation.