Aim: DISCOVER is a 3 year-global, observational study of patients with type 2 diabetes (T2D) initiating second-line glucose lowering treatment in 37 countries. Here we report healthcare cost avoidance pattern of 3139 participants from India.

Methods: Participants were recruited from 28 centers in India from both primary and specialist healthcare settings. Data were collected using a standardized case report form. This is a 3-year prospective ongoing observational study and here we analyze the healthcare cost avoidance patterns at baseline, 6 months and 12 months. Healthcare cost avoidance was measured through a patient questionnaire.

Results: Majority of the participants had no health insurance coverage. More than 90% of the participants in this study didn’t avoid any healthcare services due to cost reason and most of them didn’t avoid a medication prescribed for cost reasons.

Conclusions: Though majority of the participants enrolled were self-paying, and not covered by insurance or government schemes, the majority rarely or never missed to follow the physician’s advice. This reflects on health care adherence related patient behavior in India. Majority of the participants had completed secondary education which might have added some bias to the results.
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Disclosure

S. Kalra: None. B. Srinivasan: None.

Funding

AstraZeneca

© 2019 by the American Diabetes Association.
2019
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