Diabetics need more stable health insurance coverage to ensure they get the care needed to protect their health, a Kaiser Permanente study finds.
The study included 3,384 diabetes patients receiving medical care from 2005-2007 at 50 federally qualified health centers in Oregon. These health centers provide free or reduced-cost care to low-income patients regardless of their insurance status.
More than half the patients in the study (52 percent) had continuous coverage, most often provided by Medicaid. Twenty-seven percent had no insurance, and 21 percent had interrupted coverage, during the three-year study period. Patients with private insurance were excluded from the study.
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Researchers examined patients' electronic health records to determine whether they received four services recommended at least annually for diabetes patients: a lipid test for high cholesterol, a flu vaccine, a test that measures blood sugar levels, and a urine test that can detect kidney damage.
Of those with continuous health insurance coverage, 48 percent of patients received at least three lipid-screening tests at one of the study clinics over the three-year study period; 25 percent received three or more flu shots; 72 percent received three or more screenings for blood glucose; and 19 percent received three or more screenings for kidney damage.
Patients with no coverage, and patients with interruptions in coverage, received significantly fewer of these services than patients with continuous health insurance coverage.
The study showed no increase in services received as insurance coverage increased; rather, all patients with discontinuous health insurance were equally vulnerable to missing services, compared to the continuously insured.
"Our study shows that patients need continuous health insurance coverage in order to ensure adequate preventive care, even when that care is provided at a reduced cost," says Rachel Gold, lead author and investigator with the Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research in Portland, Ore.
The study was funded in part by the National Institutes of Health and findings published online in the Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine.
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