Relationship Between High Cost Sharing and Adverse Outcomes: A Truism That’s Tough to Prove

It is a clear policy priority to understand the clinical and economic trade-offs associated with high patient cost sharing for essential medications. This is especially true as the level of cost sharing faced by commercially insured patients continues to increase,²⁰ and the economy stagnates. While Philipson et al’s results are consistent with a large literature on this topic, their analysis highlights the challenges in quantifying a relationship that seems to be a truism.

Author Affiliations: From the Division of Pharmacoepidemiology and Pharmacoeconomics, Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA.

 

Funding Source: None reported.

 

Author Disclosure: Dr Choudhry receives research funds from the Commonwealth Fund, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and Aetna for work related to setting copayments for cardiovascular medications. He is a consultant to Mercer Health and Benefits, Inc.

 

Authorship Information: Concept and design; drafting of the manuscript; and critical revision of the manuscript for important intellectual content.

 

Address correspondence to: Niteesh K. Choudhry, MD, PhD, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, 1620 Tremont St, Ste 3030, Boston, MA 02120. E-mail: nchoudhry@partners.org.

 

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