Website: www.highcostsofdiabetes.com
For people needing medications to control chronic conditions such as diabetes, out-of-pocket expenses can add up. Saving money by skipping or cutting the dose of medications is common. By some accounts, up to 1/3 of patients are purposely not taking their prescriptions as directed by their doctors. While this may save money in the short run, the impact on people’s future medical costs may be severe.
This is particularly true for patients with diabetes. Short-term consequences of skipping or cutting back medications can include costly hospital emergency room visits for problems such as hyperglycemia. Long-term possible extreme adverse outcomes include heart attack, heart failure, stroke, blindness, kidney disease, and amputation.
A website launched in May, 2010, www.highcostsofdiabetes.com, can help people with diabetes learn their risks of developing these severe conditions. The website also has a worksheet that shows how much future earnings may be impacted by disability or death. People who have diabetes, their family members, and health professionals will all benefit from visiting this website.
Not taking diabetes medications as prescribed to correctly manage this disease can be very costly, and this website will let people learn what these costs can be.
