Health insurance companies are already an oxymoron– they neither are about health nor insurance– instead they have become a redistribution vehicle for transferring money from the healthy to pay for chronic care of the sick and end-of-life “heroics”.
The Nytimes has an interesting article on the emergence and implications of Tier 4 “co-pays” for medications– bringing a percent of drug cost into the co-pay equation for expensive medications.
With the new pricing system, insurers abandoned the traditional arrangement that has patients pay a fixed amount, like $10, $20 or $30 for a prescription, no matter what the drug’s actual cost. Instead, they are charging patients a percentage of the cost of certain high-priced drugs, usually 20 to 33 percent, which can amount to thousands of dollars a month.
For example, here is a sample Tier 4 explanation from BCBS NM.
What is a 3-Tier or 4-Tier prescription drug plan? continue reading »
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Posted by Vijay Goel, M.D. |
Categories: Uncategorized | Tagged: copays, price, specialty pharmaceuticals | 
