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Title: Medical Adherence among Asthma Patients when Health Insurance Plans Change
Citation Type: Miscellaneous
Publication Year: 2017
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Abstract: Healthcare costs in the U.S are the highest among countries and are continuing to increase. Contributing to these costs is medical adherence, a measure of if a patient is taking their medications or following doctors’ orders correctly. Medical nonadherence represent 3-10% of all U.S healthcare costs (Iuga & McGuire, 2014). Chronically ill patients have a higher nonadherence rate of around 50% (Chisholm-Burns & Spivey, 2003). Chronic patients with asthma especially have a high medical nonadherence rate of between 30-70% and consist of eight percent of the U.S population. Being such a large proportion of the U.S, changes in healthcare policies concerning asthma patients have a great effect on many Americans. In 2010 the Affordable Care Act (ACA) led to major restructuring in the health insurance market; new requirements led customers to look elsewhere in the market for better prices resulting in insurance plan switches, called churning. From 2015 to 2016 two thirds of the 12.7 million people with insurance through Healthcare.gov changed their health insurance plan from the previous year (Avalere Health, 2016). Now, in 2016, a new president has been elected that threatens the ACA of being repealed or replaced in the coming years. Many evolving proposals for replacement feature consumer choice as a key factor which implies plan switching may continue or increase. It is important to examine the effects churning would have. One group of researchers found that stronger patient-provider relationships in HIV patients were associated with higher medical adherence (Schneider et. al, 2004). When patient-provider relationships are disrupted because of churning, medical adherence is likely to decrease. With asthma patients consisting so much of our population, it is especially important to examine how churning can affect their medical adherence. This study will investigate if changing insurance plans negatively affects medical adherence for asthma patients.
Url: https://www.uwlax.edu/urc/JUR-online/PDF/2017/Drangeid.Kimberly.ECO.pdf
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Authors: Drangeid, Kimberly
Publisher: University of Wisconsin - LaCrosse
Data Collections: IPUMS Health Surveys - NHIS
Topics: Health
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