INDIANAPOLIS — If you are hospitalized with COVID-19, there is a good chance you will have to pay a portion of the bill.
A new Kaiser Family Foundation study found nearly three-quarters of private insurers are no longer waiving cost-sharing for COVID-19 treatment.
Krutika Amin with the Kaiser Family Foundation said that number is likely to increase.
"Another 10% (of insurers) are expected to phase out the cost sharing waivers by October of this year," Amin said.
At the beginning of the pandemic, KFF found 88% of people enrolled in fully insured private health plans got their out-of-pocket costs waived if they were hospitalized with COVID-19.
But with vaccines ready and available, that practice is almost phased out according to their more recent study.
Depending on your insurance plan, out-of-pocket costs for a hospitalization could be more than $1,000.
"People's out of pocket costs are a fraction of what it costs the system for these COVID hospitalizations that are preventable at this point," Amin said.
A KFF analysis found in June and July 2021, COVID-19 hospitalizations among unvaccinated adults cost the U.S. health system over $2 billion.
Amin adds that the cost of treating unvaccinated people for COVID-19 will ultimately cost society, "including taxpayer-funded public programs and private insurance premiums paid by workers, businesses, and individual purchasers."