Up to 77% of physicians have difficulty advising patients on out-of-pocket costs: 5 findings

Becker's Healthcare December 7, 2021
Alan Condon

Most physicians have difficulty estimating out-of-pocket medication expenses even when they have access to patients’ drug and insurance information, according to a study published in November in JAMA Network Open.

The survey provided a vignette in which a hypothetical patient was prescribed a tier 4 drug that cost $1,000 per month without insurance. With a summary of the patient’s private insurance information, physicians were asked to estimate how much the patient would have to pay when filling this medication using four types of cost-sharing: deductibles, coinsurance, copays and out-of-pocket maximums.

Of the 371 outpatient physicians included in the study, 112 (30 percent) were primary care physicians, 128 (35 percent) were gastroenterologists and 131 (35 percent) were rheumatologists.

Five findings:

1....

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