Wednesday, August 9, 2017

One in ten CT adults has high medical needs

Understanding high-need adults with complex conditions and their barriers to care are key to developing solutions that improve health and control costs. High-need adults have at least two chronic diseases and a functional limitation in their ability to care for themselves or perform routine daily tasks. A new report from the Commonwealth Fund outlines in depth the number of high-need adults and their challenges across states. Ten percent of adults in CT have high medical needs, just below the US average of 12%. High-need adults tend to be older and over one in three in CT has income below 200% of the Federal Poverty Level. In good news, only 7% are uninsured, compared to 9% of all CT adults, and 94% have a usual source of care. Unfortunately high need adults in CT are more to have gone without or delayed needed care due to cost. Almost one in three (31%) went without a provider visit because of cost and 15% went without a prescription due to cost.  Ot those who delayed care for reasons other than cost, 40% were due to transportation problems and 24% could not get a timely appointment for care.