Americans with employer-based health coverage could be hit with high out-of-pocket costs if they’re hospitalized for the coronavirus.
To project costs tied to coronavirus treatments, researchers analyzed pneumonia hospitalizations from a claims database of 18 million people enrolled in large employer health plans in 2018.
The analysis shows that the average pneumonia hospital admission for a person with major complications or comorbidity cost $20,292 in 2018, though costs varied across the U.S. These types of patients spent an average of $1,300 in out-of-pocket costs.
For people with less serious complications or comorbidities, the average hospital stay was $13,767, while people without these issues saw an average cost of $9,763. They had out-of-pocket expenses that were $1,365 and $1,464, respectively – only slightly higher than for people with more complex pneumonia cases.
President Donald Trump said last week that health insurers had agreed to “waive all co-payments for coronavirus treatments, extend insurance coverage to these treatments, and to prevent surprise medical billing.” But the industry quickly clarified that insurers planned to waive out-of-pocket costs for coronavirus testing, not treatments…
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