copayment

In December 2001, the Veterans Health Administration (VA) increased specialty visit copayments from $15 to $50, creating a natural experiment to examine changes in expenditures.

So although copayments for GP visits are an option for raising revenue for the government they do undermine the basic principle of Medicare.

The authors illustrate the importance of considering behavioral hazard in the context of a recent large-scale field experiment that eliminated copayments for one group of recent heart attack victims, while another group faced a 25 percent copayment.

O'Brien said the premium decrease is the result of favorable claims experience as well as minimal design adjustments to some of the insurance carriers' drug copayments, while also keeping the copayments affordable to retirees and within the benchmark levels set by the state's Group Insurance Commission.

Among patients making copayments, only 36 percent to 49 percent filled their prescriptions, depending on the drug.

The advent of health maintenance organizations (HMOs), preferred provider organizations (PPOs), and copayments made it relatively inexpensive to come in for visits and purchase medications.

Tiered copayments for prescription drugs have long been a part of insurers' cost containment strategies, with patients paying fixed amounts from their own funds when a prescription is filled; the dollar amounts vary depending on the cost of a particular drug and whether a less expensive--generic--alternative exists.

Recorded retail transactional data included coverage and copayments.

The Medicare Part D prescription drug plan can save typical enrollees an estimated average of more than USD450 in 2011 with a USD14.80 monthly plan premium, low copayments and cost-shares, as compared with the average total costs for a Part D prescription drug plan in 2010.