The Economic Burden of Heart Failure with Reduced Ejection Fraction: Living Longer but Poorer?

Treatment of heart failure with reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF) has benefitted from a proliferation of new medications and devices. These treatments carry important clinical benefits, but also come with costs relevant to payers, providers, and patients. Patient out-of-pocket costs have been implicated in the avoidance of medical care, nonadherence to medications, and the exacerbation of health care disparities. In the absence of major health care policy and payment redesign, high-quality HFrEF care delivery requires transparent integration of cost considerations into system design, patient-clinician interactions, and medical decision making.