Study: Financial barriers cause patients to skip follow-up care, require repeat hospitalizations
Case Management Weekly, March 21, 2007
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Many patients do not receive the necessary follow-up care they need, regardless of whether they have health insurance or not, according to a new study led by Harlan Krumholz of Yale University School of Medicine, The Boston Globe reports. For the study, Krumholz reviewed 2,498 patients recovering from heart attacks. One in five said they could not afford follow-up care, and one in eight did not buy medicines because of the cost. More than two-thirds of those worried about costs had health insurance. In addition, the study found that participants who did not follow physician recommendations for follow-up care because of "financial barriers" were 30% more likely to require repeat hospitalization and that those who could not afford prescribed medications were 50% more likely to require repeat hospitalization. "We often talk about health insurance as a yes-or-no thing. But just to get health insurance without looking at the type of coverage it entails is often not enough," Krumholz told The Globe.
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