Patients needing colonoscopy after a non-invasive, stool-based test (SBT) often paid out of pocket for it, a study showed.
One in six older adults who had a colonoscopy in the 6 months after some form of SBT ended up with cost-sharing, including 48% of commercially insured and 78% of Medicare patients in the insurance database claims analysis.
Those out-of-pocket costs ranged from $99 to $231, reported Nicole Princic, MS, of IBM Watson Health in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and colleagues in a research letter in JAMA Network Open.