Presentation (CTI)

OBJECTIVES: High out-of-pocket medicine costs can create barriers to treatment when expenses accumulate rapidly, even in health systems with annual cost-sharing limits. This study presents early findings from a Finnish national pilot offering interest-free, repayable financial support to help patients manage high short-term medication costs, aiming to improve affordability and continuity of care.
METHODS: The study uses administrative application and register-based data from the first seven months of the pilot, focusing on individuals receiving financial support for high short-term medication expenses. Descriptive analyses were conducted to examine the age distribution, clinical characteristics, and medication profiles of recipients.
RESULTS: Recipients (n=574) covered a broad adult population (mean age 50 years; range 18-84), with 63% female and 2.1% of loans granted for children’s medication expenses. Approvals were most common among individuals aged 40-69 years (58.9%), particularly in the 50-69 age groups. Recipients were typically patients with chronic conditions requiring long-term and often costly pharmacotherapy. The most common diagnoses included psoriasis (23.2%), asthma (19.2%), type 2 diabetes (19.0%), migraine (11.5%), and inflammatory bowel diseases (9.8%). High-cost medicines were prominent among approved cases. Frequently used medicines included biologic therapies such as infliximab, risankizumab, dupilumab, guselkumab, and fremanezumab, commonly used in inflammatory and immune-mediated conditions as well as migraine. Medication costs among recipients were typically driven by a limited number of high-cost dispensing events.
CONCLUSIONS: Barriers to accessing medicines are not driven only by total out-of-pocket costs, but also by their timing and short-term concentration. Recipients were typically patients with chronic conditions using high-cost therapies, where costs can arise abruptly within a short period. A key policy implication is that financial protection mechanisms should address not only annual cost burden but also the upfront timing of expenses. Targeting short-term affordability may support timely access and continuity of care as the use of advanced therapies continues to increase internationally.