Copay assistance now = higher health care costs in the future. That is what Peter Ubel, MD, reports in new Annals of Internal Medicine article, an online first:
Ubel PA, Bach PB. Copay assistance for expensive drugs: a helping hand that raises costs [published online October 11, 2016]. Ann Intern Med. 2016; doi:10.7326/M16-1334. [Link]
Dr. Peter Ubel, a Duke physician and behavioral scientist, and colleague Dr. Peter Bach, from the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, discuss how the use of coupons and other financial assistance for expensive drugs have "deleterious consequences that may make these programs harmful".
They state, in the article, 5 reasons:
- Copay assistance diminishes price pressure
- Copay assistance undermines benefit designs that allow for low-cost insurance plans
- Copay assistance programs are not as good as they seem.
- Copay assistance programs reduce negotiating leverage for insurers.
- Copay assistance programs keep patients from acting as consumers.
Since this article published just less than a week ago, it has gained quite a bit of attention from various news outlets; including these two below:
AJMC: Why We All Pay for Those Prescription Drug Coupons
Healio: Copay assistance programs not solution to high drug prices
You can read more about Dr. Ubel’s publications and his opinions from his blog: “Health, Bioethics, and Behavioral Economics".
Also, follow @PeterUbel on Twitter.