Data from Institute for Health Research Provide New Insights into Lung Cancer (Individuals Eligible for Lung Cancer Screening Less Likely to Receive Screening When Enrolled in Health Plans With Deductibles): Oncology – Lung Cancer

2023 SEP 05 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Health Policy and Law Daily -- Researchers detail new data in lung cancer. According to news reporting out of Denver, Colorado, by NewsRx editors, research stated, “In 2015, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and commercial insurance plans began covering lung cancer screening (LCS) without patient cost-sharing for all plans. We explore the impact of enrolling into a deductible plan on the utilization of LCS services despite having no out-of-pocket cost requirement.”

The news editors obtained a quote from the research from Institute for Health Research: “This retrospective study analyzed data from the Population-based Research to Optimize the Screening Process Lung Consortium. Our cohort included non-Medicare LCS-eligible individuals enrolled in managed care organizations between February 5, 2015, and February 28, 2019. We estimate a series of sequential logistic regression models examining utilization across the sequence of events required for baseline LCS. We report the marginal effects of enrollment into deductible plans compared with enrollment in no-deductible plans. The total effect of deductible plan enrollment was a 1.8 percentage-point (PP) decrease in baseline LCS. Sequential logistic regression results that explore each transition separately indicate deductible plan enrollment was associated with a 4.3 PP decrease in receipt of clinician visit, a 1.7 PP decrease in receipt of LCS order, and a 7.0 PP decrease in receipt of baseline LCS. Reductions persisted across all observable races and ethnicities.”

According to the news editors, the research concluded: “These findings suggest individuals enrolled in deductible plans are more likely to forgo preventive LCS services despite requiring no out-of-pocket costs. This result may indicate that increased cost-sharing is associated with suboptimal choices to forgo recommended LCS. Alternatively, this effect may indicate individuals enrolling into deductible plans prefer less health care utilization. Patient outreach interventions at the health plan level may improve LCS.”

For more information on this research see: Individuals Eligible for Lung Cancer Screening Less Likely to Receive Screening When Enrolled in Health Plans With Deductibles. Medical Care, 2023. The publisher for Medical Care is Ovid Technologies (Wolters Kluwer Health).

A free version of this journal article is available at https://doi.org/10.1097/mlr.0000000000001903.

Our news journalists report that additional information may be obtained by contacting Kris Wain, Institute for Health Research, Kaiser Permanente Colorado, Denver, CO, United States. Additional authors for this research include Nikki M. Carroll, Stacey Honda, Caryn Oshiro, Debra P. Ritzwoller.

(Our reports deliver fact-based news of research and discoveries from around the world.)