Employers will continue to take aggressive steps in 2009 to mitigate the impact of high HMO premium increases on their health care budgets, Hewitt Associates reports.

According to Hewitt, an increasing number of companies are consolidating vendors, moving from smaller, less efficient plans to consolidated risk pools with their more efficient administration; and consolidating plan participants under self-insured arrangements where they assume the full financial risk for medical claim costs and pay the health plan an administrative fee for services such as claims processing and provider network management.

Hewitt also finds that companies are increasing their focus on employee health, aggressively negotiating with health plans, and shifting costs to dependents.