How Will Biden Administration Handle Copay Accumulators? With Chart: Copay Accumulator Usage Is on the Rise
Thanks to recent regulatory moves as well as the increasing prevalence of copay accumulator/maximizer programs, the tactics that payers use to counter drug manufacturer copay assistance continue to be a controversial topic in the health care sector. However, it’s still unclear how the Biden administration will approach the issue, industry experts say, so stakeholders on both sides of the debate should prepare for more uncertainty.
Copay accumulators work by preventing any monetary assistance that pharmaceutical companies offer commercially insured patients from counting toward their deductible or out-of-pocket maximum. Their close cousin, copay maximizers, take the total amount of a manufacturer’s copay offset program and divide it by 12, and that amount becomes the new monthly copayment for all patients on any given drug over the course of a year.