The following is a summary of “Care access and utilization among Medicare beneficiaries living with Parkinson’s disease,” published in the July 2023 issue of Neurology by Pearson et al.
Medicare beneficiaries with Parkinson’s disease (PD) engaging with the healthcare system is crucial due to the rapidly increasing PD population in the US, with around 90% of PD patients covered by Medicare insurance.
Researchers performed a retrospective study to examine the healthcare utilization patterns of individuals diagnosed with PD enrolled in Medicare in 2019. Based on their calculations, the number of beneficiaries with PD was approximately 685,116, which accounts for 1.2% of the total Medicare population. In comparison to the overall Medicare population, 56.3% of PD beneficiaries were male (vs. 45.6%), 77.9% were over the age of 70 (vs. 57.1%), 14.7% were people of color (vs 20.7%), and 16.0% resided in rural areas (vs 17.5%). Upon data analysis, they discovered notable discrepancies in the provision of healthcare. Of the total PD beneficiaries (n = 274,046), 40% did not receive any consultation from a neurologist throughout the calendar year. Merely 9.1% of the beneficiaries sought treatment from a movement disorder specialist (MDS).
A small proportion of Medicare beneficiaries diagnosed with PD utilized recommended physical, occupational, or speech therapy services. Notably, individuals from ethnic minority backgrounds and rural areas were found to have the lowest rates of access to neurologists and therapy services. Despite 52.9% of beneficiaries being diagnosed with depression, 1.8% sought clinical psychology visits.
The study underscores the need for additional research on population-specific obstacles to accessing Parkinson’s disease-related healthcare.
Source: nature.com/articles/s41531-023-00523-y
