Table II.

Emergency hospital admissions and physician visits in older (aged ≥65 years) long-term users of inhaled medications before and after the fixed copay and income-based deductible (IBD) changes (from closed cohort study [n = 37,322] with historical controls).

Outcome	Baseline Period (Months 1–12) Events/1000 Patient-Years	Fixed Copay Period (Months 13–28)				IBD Period (Months 29–40)
		Events/1000 Patient-Years	Crude RR	Adjusted RR*	95% CI	Events/1000 Patient-Years	Crude RR	Adjusted RR*	95% CI
Emergency CAE hospitalization			1.07	1.08	0.97–1.19		1.42	1.41	1.24–1.60
Policy group	98	122				135
Control group	101	117				98
Emergency hospitalization for any reason			0.91	0.91	0.86–0.96		1.00	0.99	0.93–1.05
Policy group	402	388				399
Control group	439	465				435
Physician visits			0.96	1.01	1.00–1.03		0.99	1.03	1.01–1.05
Policy group	22,913	23,142				24,470
Control group	21,325	22,322				23,020

RR = rate ratio; CAE = chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, asthma, or emphysema.

^*RR from a Poisson regression adjusted for age, sex, Romano comorbidity score, income status, number of asthma drugs used 6 months prior to baseline, number of nonasthma drugs used 6 months prior to baseline, whether admitted to hospital within 6 months prior to baseline, and quartile of physician use 6 months prior to baseline. Results are from 6 generalized estimating equation regressions (1 for each outcome and policy).