Deciding Whether to Take Sacubitril/Valsartan: How Cardiologists and Patients Discuss Out‐of‐Pocket Costs

Abstract

Background Out‐of‐pocket costs have significant implications for patients with heart failure and should ideally be incorporated into shared decision‐making for clinical care. High out‐of‐pocket cost is one potential reason for the slow uptake of newer guideline‐directed medical therapies for heart failure with reduced ejection fraction. This study aims to characterize patient–cardiologist discussions involving out‐of‐pocket costs associated with sacubitril/valsartan during the early postapproval period. Methods and Results We conducted content analysis on 222 deidentified transcripts of audio‐recorded outpatient encounters taking place between 2015 and 2018 in which cardiologists (n=16) and their patients discussed whether to initiate, continue, or discontinue sacubitril/valsartan. In the 222 included encounters, 100 (45%) contained discussions about cost. Cost was discussed in a variety of contexts: when sacubitril/valsartan was initiated, not initiated, continued, and discontinued. Of the 97 cost conversations analyzed, the majority involved isolated discussions about insurance coverage (64/97 encounters; 66%) and few addressed specific out‐of‐pocket costs or affordability (28/97 encounters; 29%). Discussion of free samples of sacubitril/valsartan was common (52/97 encounters; 54%), often with no discussion of a longer‐term plan for addressing cost. Conclusions Although cost conversations were somewhat common in patient–cardiologist encounters in which sacubitril/valsartan was discussed, these conversations were generally superficial, rarely addressing affordability or cost‐value judgments. Cardiologists frequently provided patients with a course of free sacubitril/valsartan samples without a plan to address the cost after the samples ran out.