Funding for a study to consider the effect of high-deductible health plans on treatment of bipolar disorder comes from the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI), an independent, non-profit organization authorized by Congress in 2010 to fund comparative clinical effectiveness research.
This mixed methods study will use insurance claims from thousands of anonymous patients with bipolar disorder to examine the impact of HDHPs on quality of care, adverse clinical outcomes, and patient out-of-pocket costs. The project will compare HDHPs to traditional commercial insurance plans and also determine whether HDHPs that cover medications at lower costs to patients result in better outcomes than HDHPs that require higher costs. In addition, the research team will interview dozens of patients to better understand their experiences navigating insurance benefits and accessing needed care for bipolar disorder.
DPM faculty members, Drs. Frank Wharam and Christine Lu, are co-principal investigators for the study. According to Richard Platt, MD, MS, professor and chair of the Harvard Medical School Department of Population Medicine at the Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute, findings from this research can enable the team to make recommendations about how health plans can best protect patients with bipolar illness.