Abstract 74: Healthcare Utilization Among Cardiovascular Disease Patients Switching To A High-deductible Health Plan

Background: The majority of commercially insured individuals in the US are enrolled in high-deductible health plans (HDHPs). HDHPs aim to reduce healthcare spending by disincentivizing expensive care utilization and are associated with lower inpatient and outpatient care utilization. The association of HDHPs with healthcare utilization in patients with chronic cardiovascular (CV) disease is unclear. We studied the association of employer-mandated switching to HDHPs with inpatient and outpatient care utilization in patients with chronic CV disease.

Methods: Data were extracted from a national commercial health insurance claims data set (Optum® Clinformatics® Data Mart). We identified employers that mandated switching from a traditional plan to an HDHP versus those that remained in traditional plans from 2011 to 2019 to reduce selection bias. We created a cohort of patients aged 18-64 with heart failure, coronary artery disease, peripheral artery disease, or stroke who were enrolled in these employer plans. Our primary outcomes were rates of all-cause hospitalizations and outpatient visits. We estimated the difference-in-differences in these outcomes between persons who switched to an HDHP after at least 1 year of enrollment in a traditional plan, compared to those who remained in a traditional plan, using a negative binomial regression model with inverse probability of treatment weighting to balance baseline patient characteristics.

Results: A total of 1,038 individuals with chronic CV disease switched to an HDHP and 56,756 remained in a traditional plan. Switching to an HDHP was associated with a 10.4% (95% CI 4.3% to 16.2%; p=0.001) lower annual rate of outpatient visits, i.e., 0.66 (95% CI 0.25 to 1.05) fewer visits per person per year. The change in annual all-cause hospitalizations after switching to an HDHP was not statistically significant: -16.4% (95% CI -45.2% to 27.4%; p=0.41).

Conclusion: Among patients with chronic CV disease, switching to an HDHP was associated with a significant reduction in outpatient visits and no significant change in all-cause hospitalizations. These findings suggest that HDHPs are associated with lower outpatient care utilization without significant change in utilization of inpatient services.