Matthew D. Eisenberg, Amelia M. Haviland, Ateev Mehrotra, Peter J. Huckfeldt, and Neeraj Sood find that being offered or enrolling in a “consumer-directed” health plan (CDHP) did not affect cancer screening rates in the three years following enrollment in the plan. CDHP enrollees did, however, increase screenings in the final three months before switching plans, demonstrating a possible poor understanding of CDHP benefit design. The authors posit the extended time horizon of the study may have captured enrollees learning that preventative care screenings are not subject to cost-sharing under these plans as well as an initial “stockpiling” of services prior to switching, underlying the importance of studying effects over the longer-term. These findings add to the body of research about the effect of CDHP enrollment on preventative care use.
The full study is available at Journal of Health Economics.
Citation: Eisenberg, M. D., Haviland, A. M., Mehrotra, A., Huckfeldt, P. J., & Sood, N. (2017). The long term effects of “Consumer-Directed” health plans on preventive care use. Journal of health economics, 55, 61-75.