Researcher’s Work from University of Kentucky Focuses on Cancer (Satisfaction With Care Among Cancer Survivors With Medicare Coverage: Are There Rural Versus Urban Inequities?): Cancer

2024 APR 10 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Health Policy and Law Daily -- Researchers detail new data in cancer. According to news reporting originating from Lexington, Kentucky, by NewsRx correspondents, research stated, “Rural cancer survivors often face greater barriers to treatment, which may translate into worse satisfaction with health care.”

Funders for this research include Federal Office of Rural Health Policy.

Our news reporters obtained a quote from the research from University of Kentucky: “To examine rural versus urban differences in satisfaction with health care among Medicare cancer survivors. Data are from the 2020 Medicare Current Beneficiary Survey (MCBS). Rao-Scott chi-square analyses were conducted to examine rural versus urban inequities in satisfaction with 9 dimensions of health care (health professionals’ concern for health, information about what was wrong, ease/convenience from home, ease of obtaining answers over telephone, getting needs taken care of at same location, availability of specialists, overall quality, and out-of-pocket costs, and availability of care at night/on weekends). Multiple logistic regression analyses were conducted to test for rural/urban differences while adjusting for race/ethnicity, gender, marital status, educational attainment, health insurance (traditional Medicare, Medicare Advantage, dual Medicaid coverage, employer, or self-purchased insurance), and self-rated overall health. Rural cancer survivors were less satisfied with the ease/convenience of getting to health professionals (93.35% rural and 96.87% urban) and less satisfied with getting all health care needs taken care of at the same location (88.32% rural and 92.22% urban). These rural/urban differences persisted when adjusting for other factors.”

According to the news editors, the research concluded: “Health care providers serving rural areas may need to consider new strategies to satisfy some of the unique needs of rural cancer survivors, such as better organizing services at single clinic sites and utilizing telehealth when feasible to reduce the need to travel for in-person services.”

For more information on this research see: Satisfaction With Care Among Cancer Survivors With Medicare Coverage: Are There Rural Versus Urban Inequities?. Journal of Primary Care & Community Health, 2024,15. (Journal of Primary Care & Community Health - http://journals.sagepub.com/home/jpc). The publisher for Journal of Primary Care & Community Health is SAGE Publications.

A free version of this journal article is available at https://doi.org/10.1177/21501319241240342.

Our news journalists report that more information may be obtained by contacting Tyrone F. Borders, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY, United States.

ORCID is an identifier for authors and includes bibliographic information. The following is ORCID information for the author of this research: Tyrone F. Borders (http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5276-2005).

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