by Leslie Small
Though many health insurers have removed cost barriers related
to testing patients for the new coronavirus that's sweeping the globe, they
largely haven't pledged to waive out-of-pocket costs for severely sickened
members who require hospitalization. A new analysis suggests that the cost of
caring for those patients could be steep for members and health plans alike,
but experts tell AIS Health it may be too early to say what that will actually
mean for commercial insurance markets.
According to the analysis, from the Peterson Center on
Healthcare and the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF), the average total cost —
combining employer-plan spending and patient out-of-pocket costs — for a
pneumonia-related hospital stay "with major complications and
comorbidities" was $20,292 in 2018. For a stay "with complications or
comorbidities," the average cost was $13,767, and for patients without
complications, the price tag was $9,763. Looking at out-of-pocket costs alone,
the average cost for patients with major complications or comorbidities was
$1,300.
But those estimates can only tell us so much about the financial
impact of the pandemic, KFF Executive Vice President for Health Policy Larry
Levitt said during a March 18 web briefing with reporters.
"We have some information about what the cost for each
patient will be, but we have very little information yet about how many
patients there may be," Levitt said in response to a question from AIS
Health. "And that’' the big area of uncertainty — how widespread the
infection will be and how many people will become severely ill and require
hospitalization. So insurers at this point are running blind on how much the
total cost may be."
Generally, regulators do not permit health insurers to recoup
prior-year losses through premium increases, "so insurers are going to be
focusing a lot on what the ongoing cost" of the coronavirus outbreak could
be when pricing their products, Levitt said.
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