5 October 2016 - Health plans get the benefits even when consumers pay the bill.

Robyn Curtis, a staff adviser at the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg, has a 13-year-old daughter with diabetes. Each month, the girl’s insulin pump requires three vials of NovoLog-brand insulin, which cost $890 under her plan, Curtis says. Her daughter’s insurance has a $2,600 deductible.

So Curtis was beside herself when she learned that NovoLog offers rebates -- almost always paid to insurance companies and drug-benefit managers, not patients -- that might have cut the out-of-pocket cost in half earlier this year.

“Every penny until $2,600 we pay,” she says. “It’s outrageous.”

Read Bloomberg article