December 7, 2018 via NPR –

If you’re not feeling well or have a routine health issue, do you go ahead and get it checked out or put if off because of the cost?

And, let’s say you do make an appointment and go. Afterward, do you fill the prescription you received or do financial concerns stop you?

We wondered how often people deferred or skipped care because of cost, so we asked in the latest NPR-IBM Watson Health Health Poll. The survey queried more than 3,000 households nationwide in July.

For starters we asked if people had postponed, delayed or canceled some kind of health care service, such as a doctor’s appointment or medical procedure, because of cost in the preceding three months. About 1 in 5 people had done so.

“I am pretty impressed that it was only 20 percent that had postponed or delayed or canceled health care services,” says Dr. Anil Jain, vice president and chief health information officer for IBM Watson Health. “I thought it would be higher.”

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2018/12/07/674567886/poll-young-people-most-likely-to-defer-health-care-because-of-cost