Fees for Wellness & Health Promotion Counseling Lead to Fewer Referrals & Even Fewer Participants

OPEN MINDS Weekly News Wire Strategic Health Care News After fees were added to a formerly free wellness and health promotion behavior counseling program referrals dropped by 97%. The fees posed barriers to clinician referrals as well as to patient acceptance participation. When the program was free, clinicians referred about 21.8% of their patients who then actually completed the counseling. After fees were instituted, the percentage of patients referred to the program who completed the counseling dropped to 0.7%—a 97% reduction.These are findings of a report titled “Patient Costs As a Barrier to Intensive Health Behavior . . .