"We fully support the addition of an urgent care benefit for veterans and have for a number of years, but we oppose any requirements to impose a
copayment on service-connected veterans in order to access it," said National Legislative Director Joy Ilem.
To calculate the multiplicative effect of
copayment requirement on the overall mean, one exponentiates the sum of the coefficients for MUSTPAY and the interaction terms (e.g., exp([[beta].sub.4] + [[beta].sub.5]) in equation 4.2 for 2001).
Incorporating behavioral hazard into one's thinking about health insurance alters the standard conclusion that having consumers pay only a fraction of the cost of care (by charging them only a
copayment) necessarily leads them to consume too much care.
Among patients making
copayments, only 36 percent to 49 percent filled their prescriptions, depending on the drug.
Families might be able to find lower insurance premiums, but when they start paying 40% of the visit cost instead of just a $10
copayment, they may become increasingly reluctant to bring their children in.
We can lobby for modifications in the structure of tiered
copayment. We can teach patients and families to care for themselves in ways that promote optimal outcomes.
The amount of the
copayment was strongly associated with abandonment, such that prescriptions with
copayments lower than $10 were abandoned 1.4% of the time, compared with 4.5% of the time for
copayments greater than $50.
During the four-year period studied, the number of plans requiring a
copayment for a mammogram rose to 21 in 2004 from 3 in 2001.
A 2006 survey found that the most common
copayment for a medical office visit doubled since 2001.