Impact of removing prescription co-payments on the use of costly health services: a pragmatic randomised controlled trial.

ABSTRACT:

Objectives

To determine whether exempting people (with high health needs and living in areas of high deprivation) from a $5 prescription charge reduces hospital use.

Design

Two-group parallel prospective randomised controlled trial.

Setting

People living in the community in various regions of New Zealand.

Participants

One thousand sixty one people who lived in areas of high socioeconomic deprivation, and either took medicines for diabetes, took antipsychotic medicines, or had chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Of the 1053 who completed the study, just under half (49%) were Māori.

Interventions

Participants were individually randomized (1-1 ratio) to either be exempted from the standard $5 charge per prescription item for one year (2019-2020) (

SUBMITTER: Norris P 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9839957 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature