| Study On Co-Pays Honored As Year’s Top Health Services Research
A study evaluating the impact of selectively lowering
co-pays for certain classes of drugs used in the treatment of chronic
medical conditions has been judged the best health services research of
the year by an independent panel.
Entitled the "Impact of Decreasing Copayments on
Medication Adherence Within a Disease Management Environment," the
paper – published last year in Health Affairs –
won the National Institute for Health Care Management (NIHCM)
Foundation Health Care Research Award. Established in 1993, the NIHCM
award recognizes talented researchers and journalists who serve as
catalysts for positive change by advancing and informing the healthcare
policy debate.
Among the team of nine researchers honored for their
work on the study were three from ActiveHealth Management.
ActiveHealth’s patented clinical decision support technology,
CareEngine System, enabled the researchers to identify individuals from
a large employer who would benefit from essential medications, and
communicated the co-pay reduction to them. The results showed a
significant increase in compliance with four of five drug classes
studied, compared to a control group. The study is the most rigorous
controlled trial to date of value-based insurance design.
"Research has proven that co-pays, even very small ones,
can serve as financial barriers to accessing needed care," said Dr.
Stephen Rosenberg, senior vice president for outcomes research at
ActiveHealth. "This leads to costly and avoidable hospitalizations and
emergency room visits. Ourstudy demonstrated that reducing or
eliminating co-pays significantly increases compliance with potentially
life-saving medications."
ActiveHealth’s contributors to the study were
Rosenberg; Dr. Iver Juster, senior vice president for informatics; and
Arnold Wegh, senior informatics analyst. Researchers from Harvard
University and the University of Michigan rounded out the award-winning
team.
Address: ActiveHealth, 102 Madison Ave., New York, NY 10016; (212) 651-8200, www.activehealth.net.
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