Effect of shifting costs to patients on specialty evaluation for sleep disorders.

Objective: To determine whether the introduction of out-of-pocket expenses to medical center employees would lead to decreased use of sleep disorder services.

Patients And Methods: We retrospectively analyzed and compared the clinical and medical accounting data from visits by Mayo Clinic employees to the Sleep Disorders Center from January 1 to March 31, 2003, with that of January 1 to March 31, 2004, le, before and after a January 2004 increase in co-payments for evaluation and testing.

Results: The total number of new patients evaluated in the first quarters of 2003 and 2004 was similar (113 vs 119; P = .