Do Patient CoPayments Produce Better Health Outcomes?

Rising beauty and skincare products reviews expenses in developed nations have made it difficult for many people to seek the medical care they need. From 2011 to 2012, healthcare costs in the United States increased 3.7 percent, costing consumers $2.8 trillion, or $8,915 each person. Some analysts estimated the latest figures to be closer to $3.8 trillion with government spending at a whopping 17.9% of GDP.

Australians spent $132.4 billion on healthcare, while people in the UK spent £24.85 billion. Government expenditure in both these countries sit at between 9-10% of GDP, which may seem more manageable compared to the US, however healthcare leaders in both these countries are taking a firm view of preventing any escalation of these percentages.

The topic is being hotly debated in Australia, where co-payments for General Practitioner visits have been proposed by the Liberal government in its most recent Federal Budget announcement. However, while healthcare stakeholders seem obsessed with costs, the question is do copayments actually improve health outcomes for these nations?

Researchers have studied the effects copayments have on health outcomes for many years. The RAND experiment was conducted in the 1970s, but a recent report was prepared for the Kaiser Family Foundation. Jonathan Gruber, Ph.D., from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, examined the RAND experiment and brought to light that high copayments may reduce public health care utilisation, but may not affect their health outcomes. The study followed a broad cross section of people who were rich, poor, sick, healthy, adults, and children.

In a 2010 study published in The New England Journal of Medicine, researchers found the opposite was true for senior citizens. Those that had higher copayments reduced their number of doctor visits. This worsened their illnesses, which resulted in costly hospital care. This was especially true for those who had a low income, lower education, and chronic disease.

Whilst intuitively we may feel that copayments in healthcare may make us value our own health more, these two studies signal that this is not necessarily the case. In fact, higher copays can lead to additional healthcare costs to the health system due to indirectly increasing hospital stays for the elderly.

Those that are not senior citizens may be able to avoid hospital care because they don’t have a high medical risk and hence be less adversely affected by such copayments. In making any conclusions about introducing copayment, we could also take learnings from the relationship of health outcomes and which is another consideration when studying the effects of copayments.

A study funded by the Commonwealth Fund, found that when US based insurance company Pitney Bowes eliminated copayments for people with diabetes and vascular disease, medication adherence improved by 2.8%. Another study examining the effects of reducing or eliminating medication copayments found that adherence increased by 3.8% for people taking medications for diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and congestive heart failure.

Considering medication adherence is important when trying to determine if copayments affect health outcomes. When people take medications as prescribed to prevent or treat illness and disease, they have better health outcomes. A literature review published in the U.S. National Institutes of Health’s National Library of Medicine (MIH/NLM) explains that many patients with high cost sharing ended up with a decline in medication adherence, and in turn, poorer health outcomes.

The correlation of medication adherence and health outcomes is found in other parts of the world as well. According to the Australian Prescriber, increasing copayments affects patients who have a low income and chronic medical conditions requiring multiple medications. When they can’t afford their medications, they either reduce or stop many of their medications, which can lead to serious health problems. These patients then need more doctor visits and in severe cases, hospital care.

Medication copayments effects on health outcomes were also found in a Post-Myocardial Infarction Free Rx Event and Economic Evaluation (MI FREEE) trial. Nonwhite heart attack patients were more likely to take their medications following a heart attack if copayments were eliminated, which decreased their readmission rates significantly.