Increased Cost Sharing Means Fewer Doctor Visits Among Elderly
by Jennifer Bunn, RNA study published in the New England Journal of Medicine showed that increasing Medicare co-payments resulted in fewer doctor visits and more frequent and lengthy hospitalizations among seniors.
In tough economic times, insurance companies may see the benefit in raising co-payments to help defer rising costs, but this strategy is likely to backfire on them, as evidenced by this study. The study included almost 900,000 seniors enrolled in 36 different Medicare plans. The results? Those seniors who saw a raise in their co-pay rates saw a doctor less often and were hospitalized more often and for longer periods of time. Good medicine? This would not seem to be the case. The populations most affected by a rise in co-payments were those who could least afford it- those living in low-income neighborhoods and those who already had diagnosed health problems, such as diabetes, hypertension and heart disease.
The study illustrated what many intuitively know: raising co-payments leads to less preventative care, which means sicker patients who need to be cared for at a higher cost, not to mention an increase in patient dissatisfaction.
Source: Increased Ambulatory Care Copayments and Hospitalizations among the Elderly
