Health insurance coverage literacy was determined by the question “Did you ever have an issue understanding health insurance or medical expenses related to your cancer, its treatment, or the lasting effects of that treatment?” Medical financial hardship was measured by reports of problems paying medical bills, fret about paying medical costs, and delaying or foregoing care because of expense. Non-medical financial sacrifices were measured by changes in spending, living circumstance, or usage of savings.
Improving medical insurance literacy has been proposed as a prospective intervention to help decrease financial challenge. To date, however, little is understood about the associations in between medical insurance literacy and medical financial challenge and non-medical monetary sacrifices in cancer survivors.
“Growing evidence suggests that medical insurance literacy is a nationwide issue in the United States, and is connected with negative impacts,” compose the authors, stating future longitudinal research studies are warranted to examine if enhancing health insurance coverage literacy can reduce monetary challenge. “Interventions such as monetary and health insurance coverage navigation, decision help, and more easier-to-read and easy to use medical costs, which improve patients understanding of medical insurance and medical expenses, might possibly be used to enhance health insurance coverage literacy and benefit cancer survivors.“
Rising expenses of cancer care can result in monetary difficulty for cancer survivors, even among those with health insurance. Meanwhile, growing evidence suggests that numerous grownups have restricted confidence, understanding, and capability to obtain, evaluate, and use medical insurance information that may impact the capability to best use health benefits and result in unneeded medical costs.
The authors state the study indicates that health insurance coverage literacy might be an important intervention for dealing with financial issues associated with cancer. Rising costs of cancer care can result in monetary hardship for cancer survivors, even among those with health insurance coverage. Cancer survivors with health insurance literacy problems were likewise more most likely to report all types of non-medical financial sacrifices and more most likely to report any monetary sacrifices than those without the issues (18-64 years: chances ratio: 9.90;? (2019) Is Health Insurance Literacy Associated with F nancial Hardship Among Cancer Survivors?
To read more, detectives led by Jingxuan Zhao, MPH of the American Cancer Society recognized 914 adult cancer survivors from the 2016 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey Experiences with Cancer self-administered survey, a nationally representative family study managed by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. The survey addresses financial challenge, health insurance protection, and access to care related to cancer, its treatment, and long lasting impacts of treatment.
Source: Journal reference: Zhao, J., et al. (2019) Is Health Insurance Literacy Associated with F nancial Hardship Among Cancer Survivors? Findings from a National Sample in the United States; JNCI Cancer Spectrum. doi.org/10.1093/jncics/pkz061.
They found that, adult cancer survivors aged 18-64 and? 65 years with medical insurance literacy problems were more most likely to report any product hardship (18-64 years: chances ratio: 3.02;? 65 years: odds ratio: 3.33), and more most likely to report psychological hardship (18-64 years: odds ratio: 5.53;? 65 years: chances ratio: 8.79) than those without the literacy problems. Cancer survivors with medical insurance literacy issues were also more likely to report all types of non-medical monetary sacrifices and more most likely to report any financial sacrifices than those without the problems (18-64 years: odds ratio: 9.90;? 65 years: odds ratio: 2.12).
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