Medscape: Do High Out-of-Pocket Costs Delay Diabetes Patients From Care?

Mandated enrollment into a high-deductible insurance plan delays the time it takes patients with diabetes to seek care for cardiovascular (macrovascular) disease-related symptoms, tests, and procedures, compared with those who remain on a low-deductible insurance plan, an observational, longitudinal study suggests. “High-deductible plans, which require potential out-of-pocket spending of approximately $1000 to $7000 per person per year for most nonpreventive care, have become an increasingly common feature of US commercial health insurance,” Frank Wharam, MD, MPH, Harvard Medical School and Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute, Boston, Massachusetts, and colleagues observe in their article, published online November 19 in the Annals of Internal Medicine.