Center for Studying Health System Change

Patient Cost Sharing: Promises and Pitfalls

Responding to rapidly rising health insurance premiums, many employers are shifting more costs to workers through higher deductibles, copayments and coinsurance. Increased cost sharing can provide a financial incentive for patients to be more cost conscious when choosing treatment options, potentially leading to more cost-effective use of services. However, high cost sharing may prompt patients—especially low-income people or those in poor health—to forgo needed care because of costs.

Traditional cost sharing mechanisms are blunt instruments for controlling costs because they typically are applied uniformly to both needed and discretionary health care services. This conference will explore new approaches to cost sharing that might help steer patients toward efficient, high-quality care while avoiding financial barriers to needed services. Presentations on cost-sharing innovations will be followed by a panel discussion drawing on consumer, purchaser and provider perspectives about the implications for the cost, access and quality of care. Results from a new HSC study measuring the financial impact of different levels of patient cost sharing on consumers also will be presented at the conference.

	Patient Cost Sharing: Promises and Pitfalls Conference Transcript

	Health Care Markets
	Information Technology
	Insurance Coverage & Costs
	The Uninsured