Concerns For Diabetes Paper

Everyone has health care concerns, but health care concerns are higher for the 29.1 million people, or 9.3% of the population, living with diabetes right now, according to the American Diabetes Association. Diabetes, also known as diabetes mellitus, describes a set of metabolic diseases in which the person has high blood glucose because insulin production is insufficient, or because the body's cells do not respond correctly to insulin, or both. Prescription medication, doctor visits, insulin pumps, and diabetes counseling are only a couple of the things diabetics may have to pay for so being a diabetic can be extremely costly. Diabetes usually comes on fast and strong, not every patient can afford to pay for the care they need to control this

Some patients, the majority being older adults, reported that they “noticed an unwillingness from their health care providers to treat their health conditions.” (Beverly, Wray, Chiu, and Lacoe, 2014). It has also been reported that “Healthcare providers don’t always discuss preferences with the patient.” Diabetic patients spend a large amount of their time at the doctor’s office and deserve to feel comfortable while they are there. If they aren’t chances are they won’t return and their diabetes will become uncontrolled which leads to even more medical issues. As of right now, the seventh leading cause of death is type two diabetes, which makes providers not paying attention to the individual needs of their patients a health care concern. Managing diabetes would be more effective and cause greater peace of mind for the provider and patient if the patient felt comfortable and could potentially eliminate this health care

With health care cost and uncomfortable doctor visits, diabetic patients can have a hard time controlling their disease which can lead to other major complications. This puts diabetic patients at a higher risk for many other complications versus patients without diabetes. Kidney disease, stroke, heart attacks, blindness, eye problems, and amputations are only a couple of the things that can be caused by uncontrolled diabetes. According to Egede, Zheng, and Simpson (2002), “Patients with diabetes were twice as likely to have diagnosed depression.” Patients with diabetes and a co-existing condition are said to have higher ambulatory care use than those without, they also fill more prescriptions. Just these two things alone cause patients with diabetes to have a higher health care use and cost. The cost of diabetes itself is expensive, adding another medical issue can nearly double a diabetics medical costs which is a major health care concern for