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MONDAY, June 22, 2020 (HealthDay News) — COVID-19 hospitalizations could result in high out-of-pocket spending for commercially insured consumer-directed health plan enrollees, according to a study published online June 15 in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Matthew D. Eisenberg, Ph.D., from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, and colleagues compared out-of-pocket spending associated with respiratory hospitalizations for conditions similar to those caused by COVID-19 between those enrolled in consumer-directed health plans and those with traditional, low-deductible plans using deidentified administrative claims from the OptumLabs Data Warehouse for Jan. 1, 2016, to Aug. 31, 2019.<\/p>\n
The researchers found significantly higher out-of-pocket spending for commercially insured consumer-directed health plan enrollees compared with traditional plan enrollees (average out-of-pocket spending: $1,961 versus $1,653); among younger populations, these differences were largest (for persons aged 0 to 21 years: $2,237 versus $1,685). The largest difference in out-of-pocket spending was seen in the first quarter of the year ($2,578 versus $1,978) and persisted into the second quarter ($1,798 versus $1,580).<\/p>\n
“Congress is now debating whether or not to require all plans to waive cost sharing related to COVID-19 treatment,” Eisenberg said in a statement. “Our findings suggest that they might want to take action to broaden cost-sharing waivers to include these self-insured plans, because those out-of-pocket costs are otherwise going to be high for many people.”<\/p>\n