Timing out-of-pocket spending in health care is challenging

<p>Almost all commercial insurance plans have cost-sharing provisions where patients help pay for their health care services. </p><p>Annual deductibles — which patients have to meet before insurance pays anything at all — and co-payments — where the patient pays either a fixed amount for or a share of the cost of each service received — are common examples.</p><p>Cost-sharing generally reduces the health insurance premium by simply shifting a share of the costs to enrollees. But it also affects utilization because having to pay for a share of the care can deter people from getting it.</p><p>How cost-sharing actually works in practice is the subject of this episode's <em>A Health Podyssey</em>.</p><p>Stacie Dusetzina from <a href="https://medschool.vanderbilt.edu/">Vanderbilt University School of Medicine</a> and Michal Horný from <a href="http://www.emory.edu/home/index.html">Emory University</a> published a paper in the February 2021 edition of <em>Health Affairs </em>that analyzes the <a href="https://www.healthaffairs.org/doi/full/10.1377/hlthaff.2020.00714">out-of-pocket spending patterns for commercially-insured individuals</a>. They focused on the timing for when expenses are incurred.<br>  <br>The unique analysis points to some distorting of the provisions of a typical health insurance plan. In particular, they found that although most commercially-insured people had several health care encounters throughout the year, their out-of-pocket spending was mostly concentrated within short time intervals.</p><p>Listen to Health Affairs Editor-in-Chief Alan Weil interview Stacie Dusetzina and Michal Horný on out-of-pocket health care spending.</p><p>This episode is sponsored by the <a href="https://www.ruralhealthresearch.org/">Rural Health Research Gateway at the University of North Dakota</a>.</p><p><a href="https://www.pubservice.com/backissue/subbi.aspx?CO=PJ&amp;PC=HR&amp;BI=HRI">Order your copy of the July 2021 issue of <em>Health Affairs</em></a><em>.</em></p><p>Subscribe: <a href="https://feeds.tr