Hepatitis C (HCV) testing interventions resulted in an increase in birth cohort (BC) testing compared to standard-of-care but also increased costs, a recent study found. Researchers aimed to estimate the effects of interventions conducted as part of the Birth Cohort Evaluation to Advance Screening and Testing for Hepatitis C study on HCV testing and costs among persons of the 1945 to 1965 BC. They found:

• Intervention resulted in substantially higher HCV testing rates compared to standard-of-care (26.9% vs 1.4% for repeated-mailing, 30.9% vs 3.6% for best practice alert [BPA], and 63.5% vs 2.0% for patient-solicitation), and significantly higher adjusted risk ratio for testing after controlling for sex, birth year, race, insurance type, and median household income (19.2 for repeated-mailing, 13.2 for BPA, and 32.9 for patient-solicitation).
• The BPA intervention had the lowest incremental cost per completed test ($24 with fixed startup costs, $3 without) and also the lowest incremental cost per new case identified after omitting fixed startup costs ($1,691).