Sperian Protection, an equipment manufacturer, lowered its health care costs over the past years with some innovative tinkering with consumer-driven health care options and through a catchy communications program.

"Health expense typically ranks in the top 3 or 5 on the list of major expenses for a company our size," remarked Michael Vittoria, HR director for Sperian, which is based in Smithfield, Rhode Island. "Any type of culture change you want to implement has to take place over time."

Vittoria, who spoke at the Employer Health and Human Capital Congress in Washington, D.C. yesterday, said Sperian adopted an aggressive marketing campaign to help workers understand the model and created a tag-line called "It's Your Money."

His session addressed communication and engagement strategies for small and midsize employers.

In 2004, Sperian, which employs about U.S. 1,300 workers, saw an 11.7% increase in its health care costs. In 2007, the increase was only 2.6%. The company credits its success in controlling costs to the adoption of what it calls a "hybrid CDHP design" with a health savings account.

For family coverage under the plan, employees pay a $2,250 deductible. Sperian covers any claims that go over that amount up to $6,000, and anything over that is covered by their insurer, Blue Cross Blue Shield.

The single-coverage design uses a $3,000 deductible with the employee paying the first $1,100 upfront and Sperian paying the rest.

The company introduced the HSA in 2007 and tried to make it as simple as possible for employees to understand – a task that can be difficult in today's complex health care environment.

"We treated communications like a marketing project, not a typical HR program," says Vittoria. In 2007, 60% of Sperian employees used a PPO health care plan, 23% an HSA and 17% an HMO plan. In 2008, the numbers are 56% for PPO, 30% for HSA and 14% for HMO.

Vittoria says right now is the perfect time for benefit managers to start thinking about their health care plans for 2009.