Diabetics underuse insulin because of rising prices
About a quarter of those who require insulin to treat diabetes use less than what is prescribed because of cost concerns, suggests a single-center study presented last week at the American Diabetes Association scientific sessions in Orlando.
Yale University researchers surveyed 199 patients in the New Haven, Connecticut, area and asked them questions about whether they had ever failed to fill a prescription or taken less insulin than prescribed because of cost. Roughly one in four responded “yes” to those or similar questions, and people who had underused insulin were also more likely to have experienced blood sugar levels outside of the normal range.
Study co-author Darby Herkert told the New York Times that middle-income patients are often the hardest hit by price hikes to drugs because they are ineligible for Medicaid but don’t earn enough to afford better health insurance or pay out of pocket.
Patients who reported an income above $100,000 were less likely to underuse insulin in the study.
“Families are making decisions,” said Kristin Sikes, a pediatric endocrine nurse at Yale. “Do I feed my family or stretch the bottle of insulin as long as possible?”
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Daniel joined TriMed’s Chicago editorial team in 2017 as a Cardiovascular Business writer. He previously worked as a writer for daily newspapers in North Dakota and Indiana.