Play all audios:
By: Deborah Schoch En español Published October 28, 2021
A year ago, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, insurance companies were likely waiving deductibles and copays if you were hospitalized with the illness and had comprehensive coverage.
And the government required those firms to cover coronavirus testing for free as well.
But nearly two years into the crisis, 72% of the nation's largest insurers are back to business as usual and billing hospital patients who are being treated for COVID-19 just as they would
for any other disease, according to a report from the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF). Another 10 percent of insurers plan to start billing by the end of October.
Why did insurers waive COVID-19 charges to begin with and what has changed?
Behind the waived copaysWhen the pandemic swept the nation in early 2020, hospitals quickly filled up with COVID-19 patients, overwhelming health workers and causing panic.
In the face of this crisis, private insurers began waiving certain charges hospital patients with COVID-19 would normally have been responsible for. Maybe this was because they wanted to do
the right thing or perhaps they worried about the potential public relations fallout of seeming to make profits from the crisis, said Krutika Amin, a KFF associate director and a coauthor
of the Aug. 19 report.
Also, while hospitals filled up with COVID-19 patients, elective surgeries and other procedures that would bring people into hospitals were postponed. There weren't enough beds for those
patients and health care officials were worried about the spread of the illness.