Killing copays and the cost of deferred care
5 Minutes
Team Curative
May 30, 2025
Why smart benefits leaders are done playing the long game with short-term savings.
You tell someone, “Go to the doctor” and you’ll see the hesitation. Maybe they’re afraid of the diagnosis or have “white-coat syndrome.” More often? It’s the price tag. A $40 copay here. A surprise $400 there. So they skip it—and that minor issue? It festers until it’s a full-blown medical crisis.
But here’s the rub: That’s not just a personal problem. It’s an employer's liability.
When your workforce delays care, your organization pays for it through higher claims, lower productivity, and talent that quietly walks out the door. And the irony of it all is that most of it’s preventable.
Our opinion? A $0 copay and $0 deductible model completely changes the game.
As Dr. Brandon Charles, Curative’s Chief Medical Officer, puts it:
“We are seeing a decrease in the cost curve relative to giving folks access and making it affordable—allowing them to get care upfront and be more preventative rather than reactive.”
This isn’t just a feel-good benefit (and it definitely is one). It’s cost control. And for forward-thinking employers, eliminating copays is no longer a radical idea—it’s a tactical one.
Deferred care: the budget you can’t see—until you can’t miss it
High-deductible health plans were supposed to incentivize smart spending. Instead, they’ve made employees think twice about treating even the basics—coughs, headaches, chronic condition management. And the cost of that hesitation? Astronomical.
Let’s talk per member, per year (PMPY):
$19,736 – Unmanaged diabetes (vs. $7,700 for someone without diabetes) — American Diabetes Association
$5,700 – Hypertension care — CDC
$111,000 – Active cancer treatment — Journal of Oncology Practice (Milliman Study)
$5,216 – Heart disease — AHRQ MEPS
And these are just the direct costs. Factor in absenteeism, reduced performance, and catastrophic claims, and the real price of deferred care is much higher.
Here’s what you can actually do about it
1. Remove the cost barriers. Completely. Let’s talk about copays and deductibles. They are literally designed to stand in the way of you getting the care you need.
Imagine your Hulu subscription got $50 higher every time you started a new episode of Friends. (Are you yelling, “Pivot!” just thinking about it?). That's exactly how healthcare works – you pay monthly, then pay again when you actually use it.
So what happens? People end up choosing between their health and their bills — that’s an impossible situation.
Around 76% of adults have at least one chronic condition, and more than half have multiple. At first, they might have been manageable. Why’d they get worse? Cost barriers kept them from getting care early. Curative Chief Medical Officer Dr. Brandon Charles said that’s the biggest issue with healthcare today. It doesn’t matter if a copay seems cheap — if the patient doesn’t have that money in their pocket at that exact moment, it’s not really accessible. Cutting back on copays and deductibles can help you prepare for the chronic disease crisis. That means happier employees and fewer empty seats in the office.
With Curative’s model, it’s simple:
“The way our plan works, we have $0 costs for anything across the board if you go in-network. No cost for medications, providers, hospitalizations, durable medical equipment, or therapy,” Dr. Charles explains. “When that's taken away, the only thing keeping somebody from seeing their physician or getting service is themselves.”
2. Turn your health plan into a hiring advantage.
You’re already trying to compete on salary, culture, and remote perks. But benefits? Still often overlooked—until someone actually needs them.
“I was just at a meeting where an HR leader said they’re using Curative as a recruitment tool,” Charles shared.
A plan that removes friction and fear isn’t just a pat on the back. It’s a reason for top talent to say yes to your offer—and stay through open enrollment.
3. Stop underwriting chaos.
Skip the care today, pay 5x more tomorrow. It’s happening already.
From 2020 to 2022, major carriers saw a 45% spike in $1M+ stop-loss claims, often tied to unmanaged chronic conditions and delayed diagnoses. That’s not a trend. That’s the cost of delay catching up.
And the nation noticed. 90% of the country’s $4.5T in annual healthcare spend goes toward people with chronic and mental health conditions.
So ask yourself: would you rather cover $500 in preventive care or $50,000 for the consequences?
What happens when you remove the cost barrier
At Curative, we’ve seen what changes when there’s nothing stopping people from getting care:
Members take and stick to their medicine at a way greater rate than most health plans. Better medication adherence looks like:
Less disease progression
Better control of conditions like diabetes, hypertension, and asthma
Fewer issues later on
Lower costs
Hospitalizations decrease, and lengths of stay are shorter than national benchmarks
People engage with their health plan — 98% completion on our Baseline Visit
Our plan is designed to catch problems early, keep conditions managed, and eliminate reasons to delay.
But it’s not just about access.
“When you take that deductible and copay away,” Dr. Charles challenges, “the insurer has a responsibility to ask: how can we, as a responsible steward to our employer and an entity that cares about our members, accommodate all the members who want and rightfully need care they've been putting off?"
That’s the work. That’s what real plan design looks like.
The takeaway: Deferred care is a business risk. $0 copays are a business strategy.
You can’t manage what you can’t see. And deferred care lives in the blind spots—until it explodes in the form of claims, churn, and lost productivity.
A $0 copay plan isn’t just member-friendly—it’s employer-smart.
So if your goals include:
Flattening your cost curve
Reducing catastrophic claims
Boosting employee engagement
Differentiating your benefits package
Then it might be time to kill the copay—for good.
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Table of Contents
Deferred care: the budget you can’t see—until you can’t miss it
Here’s what you can actually do about it
What happens when you remove the cost barrier
The takeaway: Deferred care is a business risk. $0 copays are a business strategy.
