A Yale University study found that nearly half of all non-elderly adults with heart disease in the U.S. have trouble paying their medical bills.
The study looked at the results of four years of a national health survey done by the U.S. Census Bureau.
“It was shocking and disheartening for us to actually see these results. Put simply, almost one in two patients with cardiovascular disease from chest angina, heart attacks and strokes either cannot to pay their bills or are having troubles paying them,” said lead author, Dr. Javier Valero Elizondo.
Nearly four million people reported financial hardships due to their medical bills. About one in five say they couldn’t pay those bills at all.
“Whenever you look at a picture that big and that – and I’m gonna allow myself to say – awful, the first thing that comes to mind is that we at a policy level need to do something.”
Valero Elizondo says a lot needs to be done in the doctor’s office to get patients and physicians to communicate better about the cost of their treatment.
“For physicians it can be awkward, they can just not take that into account, or if someone was insured maybe physicians just assume everything is okay. From the patient’s perspective, a lot of times there’s just fear of challenging a health care provider authority. A lot of people feel they would be stigmatized just to talk about this with their physician.”
But he says there are also big picture policy changes – from a single-payer health care system down to laws to improve insurance programs – that could make life easier when people with heart disease try to pay the bills.
