Forgoing care because of costs is a frequent situation in many countries, with estimated
prevalences going from 4% to 30% [
1
,
2
,
3
,
4
,
5
,
6
]. It can be defined as a decision of not seeking care when needed because of financial
reasons and the term is used interchangeably with unmet needs as both terms provide
similar information [
[7]
]. Whereas most studies on the prevalence of forgoing care because of costs target
the general populations, little is known of the prevalence of forgoing care for people
with specific chronic conditions. The few studies exploring this issue reported a
prevalence close to general population figures [
5
,
8
,
9
]. As people with chronic conditions have a high demand of health care, such prevalence
may either be lower, since they are being followed by a health practitioner and are
already navigating the system, or on the contrary, may be similar or higher, since
they might decide to prioritize some health issues at the expense of other conditions.Keywords
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References
- Access, affordability, and insurance complexity are often worse in the United States compared to ten other countries.Health Aff. 2013; 32: 2205-2215
- Vulnerability and unmet health care needs.J Gen Intern Med. 2005; 20: 148-154
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- The commonwealth fund 2014 health policy survey of older adults in eleven countries.in: The commonwealth fund. 2014 ([Last accessed on March 2, 2017])
- Screening primary-care patients forgoing health care for economic reasons.PLoS One. 2014; 9e94006
- High prevalence of forgoing healthcare for economic reasons in Switzerland: a population-based study in a region with universal health insurance coverage.Prev Med. 2012; 55: 521-527
- Unmet need as an indicator of health care access.Eurohealth. 2009; 15: 7-9
- Forgone care among critically ill patients in Germany – results from a cross-sectional survey with 15,565 individuals.Health Policy. 2016; 120: 170-178
- Delayed and forgone care for families with chronic conditions in high-deductible health plans.J Gen Intern Med. 2012; 27: 1105-1111
- CoDiab-VD: protocol of a prospective population-based cohort of study on diabetes care in Switzerland.BMC Health Serv Res. 2015; 15: 329
Article info
Publication history
Published online: March 12, 2017
Accepted:
March 8,
2017
Received:
March 5,
2017
Identification
Copyright
© 2017 European Federation of Internal Medicine. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
