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This country's economic meltdown is melting away patients who should be seeing a doctor. Stressed with dwindling money in their pocket, consumers are cutting back preventive health care.
Gerald Holt is in need of health care. "It scares me that I may have to cut back in medical areas and stuff; and that's one area, in my age bracket, you don't want to do," Gerald Holt said.
Though he has insurance, Holt is paying $600 per month out of pocket. As the economy worsened, so did his budget.
"It's going to really hurt," Holt said. "There's going to be stuff that I should supposedly be doing as follow-up and stuff I won't be able to afford to do."
Many patients, tightening their belts, are postponing elective procedures.
ER physicians are now seeing more people coming into emergency departments because their illness has turned critical when, in fact, they could have prevented the catastrophe with preventive care, which they've now taken out of their budget.
"People are losing their health insurance. They're losing their access to a primary care physician, which equals losing access to preventive measures, which means the right test -- the screening tests -- are delayed, which means we're going to find people with unintended consequences of this five years, 10 years down the road," said ER physician Dr. Todd Allen.
Allen is not alone. Dentists are seeing fewer appointments from families electing to postpone preventive dental care so they can keep that money in their pockets.
"We really do see that there is a downside, a decreasing of appointments during these economic times for all individuals, but particularly for the low-income," said Dr. Steve Steed, dentist with the Utah Department of Health.
Steed says even when people have insurance coverage, some are choosing not to leave work for dental appointments because they're worried about their jobs.
Allen says, to make matters worse, stress may be aggravating physical ailments. "Families are stressed. People are stressed," he said.
The president of the American College of Emergency Physicians has issued a statement expressing concerns about the current economy and its impact of patients. The medical society represents 27,000 emergency physicians.
E-mail: eyeates@ksl.com
