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posted by Fnord666 on Tuesday April 23 2019, @10:43AM   Printer-friendly
from the putting-things-off dept.

Submitted via IRC for Bytram

A stitch in time saves nine?

High-Deductible Health Policies Linked To Delayed Diagnosis And Treatment

A study published last month in Health Affairs examined claims data from a large national insurer for 316,244 women whose employers switched insurance coverage from low-deductible health plans (i.e., deductibles of $500 or less) to high-deductible health plans (i.e., deductibles of $1,000 or more) between 2004 and 2014.

The study group consisted of women who were in low-deductible plans for one year, then switched to a high-deductible plan for an additional one month to four years. The control group consisted of women who remained in low-deductible plans.

In particular, the researchers looked at the relative effects of such plans on women who have low incomes versus those with higher incomes.

Women with low incomes who had high-deductible insurance plans waited an average of 1.6 months longer for diagnostic breast imaging, 2.7 months for first biopsy, 6.6 months for first early-stage breast cancer diagnosis and 8.7 months for first chemotherapy, compared with low-income women with low-deductible plans.

In some cases, delays of that length might lead to poorer health outcomes, says J. Frank Wharam, an internist and specialist in insurance and population health, who led the study. More research needs to be done to confirm that, he says.

Interestingly, women with high incomes who relied on high-deductible health plans were not immune to such delays — they experienced lags of 0.7 months for first breast imaging, 1.9 months for first biopsy, 5.4 months for first early-stage breast cancer diagnosis and 5.7 months for first chemotherapy, compared with high-income women with low-deductible plans.

The researchers also found that having a high-deductible health plan was linked to delays in care whether the women lived in metropolitan areas or not and whether they lived in neighborhoods that were predominantly white or predominantly nonwhite.

"In general, we are finding that the effects of modern high-deductible plans on access to care are sometimes predictable but often surprising," Wharam explains.


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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by DannyB on Tuesday April 23 2019, @01:55PM

    by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday April 23 2019, @01:55PM (#833851) Journal

    A deductible is an annual amount you must pay out of pocket BEFORE insurance will kick in and start paying. So, if you had a deductible of ${X}, then you would have to pay out of pocket for your first ${X} worth of health care in 2019 before insurance starts paying anything at all.

    What a high deductible health plan means is that your deductible is so high that you might be completely unable to pay it without being financially wiped out before you die in that plan year.

    What a low deductible health plan means is that once you have met your deductible for this year, insurance plan begins to pay, according to the terms and conditions, which are designed to ensure your speedy passing if it looks as though you might actually require any health care instead of just paying on the insurance payments and staying healthy.

    I hope that helps clarify.

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