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Patient Cost Share for Emergency Physician Servcies During the COVID-19 Pandemic

BACKGROUND: As a result of the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, health plans were required to implement, or voluntarily implemented, patient cost-share waivers for COVID-19-related emergency care. The impact of the cost waivers on patients for emergency physician services has not been p...

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Autores principales: Pao, Bing Shih, Chan, Theodore Craig
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Inc. 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9181310/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36241474
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jemermed.2022.06.006
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author Pao, Bing Shih
Chan, Theodore Craig
author_facet Pao, Bing Shih
Chan, Theodore Craig
author_sort Pao, Bing Shih
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: As a result of the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, health plans were required to implement, or voluntarily implemented, patient cost-share waivers for COVID-19-related emergency care. The impact of the cost waivers on patients for emergency physician services has not been previously reported. OBJECTIVE: To measure the impact of COVID-19 cost-sharing waivers on patients for emergency physician services. METHODS: A multicenter retrospective review of emergency physician commercial claims was conducted to determine the impact of the patient cost share waivers on COVID-19-related emergency physician services. Seventy-seven emergency departments (EDs) representing about a quarter of all EDs in California were included in the study. Emergency physician claims during a 9-month prepandemic period in 2019 were compared with claims during a 9-month pandemic period in 2020 to determine if there were any changes in the patient cost share between the two study periods and between COVID vs. non-COVID-related care. RESULTS: The average patient cost share was $19 for COVID-19-related emergency physician professional care and $52 for visits unrelated to COVID-19. Compared with non-COVID-19 care visits, the patient cost share was 63% less for COVID-19-related care. There was a small increase (< $2) in the patient cost share for non-COVID-19 emergency professional care during the pandemic compared with the prepandemic period. CONCLUSION: Payment policies implemented by California health plans were effective at reducing the patient cost share for patients that required COVID-19-related emergency physician care.
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spelling pubmed-91813102022-06-10 Patient Cost Share for Emergency Physician Servcies During the COVID-19 Pandemic Pao, Bing Shih Chan, Theodore Craig J Emerg Med Administration of Emergency Medicine BACKGROUND: As a result of the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, health plans were required to implement, or voluntarily implemented, patient cost-share waivers for COVID-19-related emergency care. The impact of the cost waivers on patients for emergency physician services has not been previously reported. OBJECTIVE: To measure the impact of COVID-19 cost-sharing waivers on patients for emergency physician services. METHODS: A multicenter retrospective review of emergency physician commercial claims was conducted to determine the impact of the patient cost share waivers on COVID-19-related emergency physician services. Seventy-seven emergency departments (EDs) representing about a quarter of all EDs in California were included in the study. Emergency physician claims during a 9-month prepandemic period in 2019 were compared with claims during a 9-month pandemic period in 2020 to determine if there were any changes in the patient cost share between the two study periods and between COVID vs. non-COVID-related care. RESULTS: The average patient cost share was $19 for COVID-19-related emergency physician professional care and $52 for visits unrelated to COVID-19. Compared with non-COVID-19 care visits, the patient cost share was 63% less for COVID-19-related care. There was a small increase (< $2) in the patient cost share for non-COVID-19 emergency professional care during the pandemic compared with the prepandemic period. CONCLUSION: Payment policies implemented by California health plans were effective at reducing the patient cost share for patients that required COVID-19-related emergency physician care. The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Inc. 2022-09 2022-06-09 /pmc/articles/PMC9181310/ /pubmed/36241474 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jemermed.2022.06.006 Text en © 2022 The Author(s) Since January 2020 Elsevier has created a COVID-19 resource centre with free information in English and Mandarin on the novel coronavirus COVID-19. The COVID-19 resource centre is hosted on Elsevier Connect, the company's public news and information website. Elsevier hereby grants permission to make all its COVID-19-related research that is available on the COVID-19 resource centre - including this research content - immediately available in PubMed Central and other publicly funded repositories, such as the WHO COVID database with rights for unrestricted research re-use and analyses in any form or by any means with acknowledgement of the original source. These permissions are granted for free by Elsevier for as long as the COVID-19 resource centre remains active.
spellingShingle Administration of Emergency Medicine
Pao, Bing Shih
Chan, Theodore Craig
Patient Cost Share for Emergency Physician Servcies During the COVID-19 Pandemic
title Patient Cost Share for Emergency Physician Servcies During the COVID-19 Pandemic
title_full Patient Cost Share for Emergency Physician Servcies During the COVID-19 Pandemic
title_fullStr Patient Cost Share for Emergency Physician Servcies During the COVID-19 Pandemic
title_full_unstemmed Patient Cost Share for Emergency Physician Servcies During the COVID-19 Pandemic
title_short Patient Cost Share for Emergency Physician Servcies During the COVID-19 Pandemic
title_sort patient cost share for emergency physician servcies during the covid-19 pandemic
topic Administration of Emergency Medicine
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9181310/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36241474
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jemermed.2022.06.006
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