{"id":12320,"date":"2021-04-26T16:22:00","date_gmt":"2021-04-26T16:22:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wellable.co\/blog\/covid-19-and-the-avoidance-of-medical-care\/"},"modified":"2022-10-20T03:52:49","modified_gmt":"2022-10-20T07:52:49","slug":"covid-19-and-the-avoidance-of-medical-care","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wellable.co\/blog\/covid-19-and-the-avoidance-of-medical-care\/","title":{"rendered":"COVID-19 And The Avoidance Of Medical Care"},"content":{"rendered":"

People don\u2019t always go to the doctor when they know they should. This has been a problem since before the pandemic started. However, due primarily to a fear of contracting COVID-19, a substantially greater number of people are either postponing medical visits they otherwise would have made or are cancelling them entirely. For example, a study<\/a> conducted by the Urban Institute found that \u201cmore than one-third (36 percent) of nonelderly adults delayed or did not get care because they were worried about exposure to the coronavirus or because a health care provider limited services because of the pandemic.\u201d<\/p>\n

One might think that for many individuals, this behavior is rational, because it\u2019s safer to avoid going to the emergency room or physician\u2019s office given the dangers associated with COVID-19. While understandable, this belief is not as reasonable as it may initially sound. One reason for this is that, as was reported in a study<\/a> led by Hyemin Chung on the risk of COVID-19 transmission from infected outpatients to healthcare workers in an outpatient clinic, \u201cthe risk of transmission from patients with confirmed COVID-19 to HCWs (health care workers) in outpatient clinics is very low.\u201d Moreover, there are a number of serious health risks that come with avoiding or postponing medical care. For example, in her interview<\/a> with National Public Radio (NPR), Dr. Therese Bevers notes that because people are delaying appointments like routine cancer screenings, they \u201care being diagnosed at later, more advanced stages when treatments aren’t as successful as they are in earlier stages,” Similarly, Dr. Robert Gabbay states that \u201cmany chronic diseases put patients at greater risk of dying from COVID-19\u201d and that this is \u201cparticularly true if the condition isn’t under control.\u201d<\/p>\n

For employers looking to effectively increase the chances that their employees won\u2019t forgo important visits to their healthcare providers, they need to have a clear understanding of the factors associated with medical care avoidance during the pandemic. Some of the most common reasons are that employees:<\/p>\n