Survey: Half Of Chronically Ill Adults Skip Care, Citing Costs
(New York, NY) -- A health policy group's eight-nation survey of chronically ill patients points to the critical need for major health care reform in the United States. Commonwealth Fund president Karen Davis calls it a crisis that the group's 2008 survey shows 54 percent of chronically ill adults in the U.S. do not get recommended care, do not fill prescriptions or see a doctor when sick. Health care costs are the reason most often cited for skipping needed medical care by those surveyed. A total of 75-hundred patients with chronic conditions were surveyed in the U.S. and also in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Britain.
On top of the care issue, about a third of U.S. respondents said they had experienced medical errors such as duplicated tests. The survey's Dutch patients fared the best in terms of affordable, accessible care and low rates of medical errors. Only 26 percent of U.S. and Canadian patients surveyed reported being able to get same-day access to doctors when they were sick. One-third of U.S. patients, more than from any of the other seven nations, reported either being given the wrong medication or dosage. |