CDHP participants may cut medicine

EUGENE, Ore., July 8 (UPI) -- Consumer-driven health plans, or CDHPs, result in some people forgoing care and discontinuing drugs to treat chronic medical problems, U.S. researchers say.

A study, published in Health Affairs, says many CDHP enrollees are more likely to quit taking drugs that control high blood pressure and cholesterol-lowering medications than were participants with medical coverage.

Jessica Greene of the University of Oregon says CDHPs seem to influence people through higher out-of-pocket costs, not by making people better informed healthcare consumers.

"We did not see more use of health information, higher generic drug use or more comparison shopping in terms of diagnostic tests as predicted by proponents," Greene said in a statement. "What we did see was that people were two to three times more likely to drop off drugs that treat certain chronic illnesses."

Cutting back on antihypertensive and lipid-lowering drugs may result in higher healthcare costs in the long run -- consumers may be making short-sighted, cost-saving decisions that may have higher-cost and unfortunate health ramifications, Greene says.