It’s no surprise to anyone who has diabetes how much the medication costs. Though some are covered by insurance, many are not. It’s easy to brush off the hundreds of dollars it would cost for a month or two supply of test strips when the insurance pays for it, it is quite different when you have to yourself.

But the truth is there more to pay for and more at stake than just paying for the medicine and supplies. There are the cost of surgeries and hospital visits that are the results of diabetic complications.

From a Yahoo! Article: The Surprisingly High Cost of Diabetes

“Nearly 3 out of 5 of the 18 million Americans with Type 2 diabetes suffer from at least one serious health complication such as heart attack or chronic kidney disease, according to a new study. Taken together, complications from the disease accounted for an estimated $22.9 billion in medical spending in 2006; annual health care costs per person were nearly $10,000, almost three times higher than for non diabetics.”

Some of the notables:

• 3 out of 5 Type-2 Diabetics in the U.S. suffer complications costing an estimated $22.9 Billion in 2006.
• It accounts to nearly $10,000 per person in health care costs.
• That cost is nearly 3x higher than for non-diabetics.
• On average, people with complications paid $1,566 out-of-pocket annually.

Definitely something to think about. The cost of diabetes is rising in more ways than one. This just underlines the need for better management, better education and overall better awareness of diabetes from diabetics themselves as well as the general public.

• Annual Diabetes Costs hit $174 BILLION in the U.S. Alone
• Diabeties News, Tips and Links of the Week. Finding Sugar in your Food, Type-2 Lifestyle Changes and the New Freestyle Lite
• Just spoke to another Diabetic struggling with the costs of diabetes healthcare…and I don’t mean just money!!!
• Just how much sugar is in your food?
• Free lifetime premium accounts for new signups in the next 6 days!
• 10 Tips for Travelling with Diabetes

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 24th, 2007 at 4:23 am and is filed under Diabetes Medication, Diabetes News, Diabetes Tips, Diabetic Health, Fitness, Food, Glucose Management.
.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.