Diabetic patients unwilling to pay physicians for outside scheduled office visits

Many patients with diabetes might make a phone call or send an e-mail to communicate with their physicians outside of scheduled office visits but the majority of patients are not willing to pay for these services, according to research presented at the American Osteopathic Association's (AOA) 115th Osteopathic Medical Conference & Exposition, known as OMED 2010 Unified, in San Francisco.

In a sample study of 300 patients with diabetes, 42% communicated with their physicians by telephone outside of scheduled office visits and 13% used e-mail. However, 62% of patients said they would not pay to communicate with their physicians outside of scheduled office visits.

"Patients want some way to communicate with their physicians, such as by phone or pager, to ask questions about managing their diabetes or to share information about their condition, such as their blood sugar levels," explains study co-author Jay H. Shubrook, Jr., DO, an AOA board-certified osteopathic family physician from Athens, Ohio. "They like the access but they don't want to pay for it."

The study also found older respondents, who averaged between ages 51 and 60, did not use Twitter or Facebook to communicate with their physician. Only 69% of respondents had Internet access at home. As Dr. Shubrook, an associate professor of family medicine and a diabetologist at the Ohio University College of Osteopathic Medicine in Athens, explains, older adults who live on a fixed income do not find paying for the Internet a priority compared to their other expenses, including those related to other medical conditions.