Diabetics are increasingly using GoFundMe to pay for their medical bills

Important points:

• Many people with diabetes struggle to pay their medical bills.
• Researchers evaluated 313 crowdfunding campaigns to educate people with diabetes about their financial hardships.

Many people with diabetes in the U.S. rely on crowdfunding to pay for their medical bills, even though a quarter of those sampled had insurance, according to a study published in there is Annals of Internal Medicine.

More than 40% of people with diabetes in the United States struggle to pay their medical bills. Of those patients, more than half (56%) delay or abandon treatment altogether. Caroline E. Sloan, MD, MPH, Primary care physicians at Duke University School of Medicine and their colleagues write. By one estimate, the average insulin-dependent and insured patient spends about $4,800 each year on doctor visits, supplies, medication, hospitalizations, lost wages, etc. Equivalent to 15% of median per capita income.

In contrast, patients face financial health issues More and more people are turning to crowdfunding to cover their medical bills. Sloan and others write that crowdfunding campaigns “can reveal the kinds of expenses that diabetics may be struggling to pay.”

“The crowdfunding campaign provides a window into the various financial hardships people with diabetes can face,” they wrote.

Leveraging a wealth of real-world testimonials in crowdfunding campaigns, researchers conducted a study that characterizes the financial challenges of diabetics seeking fundraising support.

They evaluated 313 GoFundMe campaigns (89% of which were posted between 2015 and 2020) that described patient care, costs, and fundraising goals. The researchers included an oversampling of type 1 diabetes campaigns to ensure that type 1 and non-type 1 diabetes campaigns were roughly evenly distributed to “ensure broad experience.”

Sloan and colleagues found that the median fundraising goal was $10,000 and the median amount raised was $2,600, with only 14% of campaigns meeting the goal.

Additionally, 25% of fundraisers had insurance, but 49% of those who had insurance said their out-of-pocket costs were still too high. Less than 10% of them asked for money specifically for insulin. 48% of direct medical costs were not directly related to glycemic control.

When it came to characterizing campaigns for types of diabetes, we found that 21% of all campaigns (almost all of them campaigns for type 1 diabetes) sought funding for diabetes alert dogs. Non-type 1 diabetes campaigns mentioned indirect health care costs more frequently than type 1 diabetes campaigns: 63% vs. 34%.

“Thirty-five percent of people with type 1 diabetes initiated a fundraising campaign for diabetic alert dogs, which cost about $15,000 and was not covered by insurance due to variable efficacy,” the researchers said. writes. “A clinician who learns that a patient intends to purchase a dog may direct the patient to proven management strategies such as continuous glucose monitoring.”

Sloan et al. write that indirect medical costs include:

• lost wages.
• healthy food;
• personal trainer.
• Home renovations to support emerging disabilities.
• Car repairs to allow travel to doctor’s appointments.
• Move to a new city to get closer to cutting-edge medical care.and
• funeral expenses.

“Many aspects of diabetes care beyond insulin can be cost prohibitive, including indirect costs that clinicians are ill-equipped to address,” write Sloan and colleagues. “Although, Inflation control law An insulin out-of-pocket cap is an important step in making health care more affordable, and policy makers will also need to address other diabetes-related costs. ”