While out-of-pocket costs (OOPCs) have largely been eliminated for screening mammography, they still serve as financial barriers to patients undergoing subsequent diagnostic tests, according to results from a retrospective cohort study.

The analysis of more than 200,000 commercially insured women who underwent screening mammography in 2016, detailed just how much more women enrolled in plans with higher cost-sharing (such as copay- and deductible-predominant plans) paid in OOPCs for subsequent imaging tests.

Plans dominated by coinsurance had the lowest mean OOPCs ($945), followed by balanced plans ($1,017), plans dominated by copays ($1,020), and plans dominated by deductibles ($1,186), reported Danny Hughes, PhD, of Arizona State University in Phoenix, and colleagues in JAMA Network Open in a new tab or window.

In turn, women in plans with higher OOPCs had fewer subsequent diagnostic breast imaging procedures than patients enrolled in plans with lower OOPCs.

For example, women in predominant co-pay plans underwent on average 24 fewer subsequent breast imaging procedures per 1,000 patients than those in predominant coinsurance plans, while women in predominant […]