Crowdfunding campaigns often focus on overall cost of diabetes, rarely mention insulin
A quarter of fundraisers for patients with diabetes reported that the patient had insurance, and many mentioned noncovered costs such as lost wages, healthy food, and diabetic alert dogs.
Many patients with diabetes resort to crowdfunding for their related expenses, a study found.
Researchers scraped a random sample of 89,645 active U.S. medical crowdfunding campaigns posted on GoFundMe from 2010 to August 2020 and eventually selected 313 campaigns that requested money for a single person whose primary condition was diabetes. Results were published as a letter by Annals of Internal Medicine on June 13.
The median fundraising goal was $10,000, the median fundraising amount was $2,600, and 14% of campaigns reached their goal. One-quarter of fundraisers reported having insurance; of these, half said insurance covered medical expenses but out-of-pocket costs were still too high. Only 6% requested money specifically for insulin; 21% requested money for diabetic alert dogs. Indirect medical expenses included lost wages, healthy food, moving to a new city to be closer to state-of-the-art medical care, car repairs to enable transportation to physicians' appointments, personal trainers, home modifications to support new physical disabilities, and funeral expenses.
“Crowdfunding campaigns provide a window into the wide range of financial struggles that patients with diabetes may face,” said the study authors, who noted that this information could be useful to clinicians who, for example, could learn of a patient's intent to purchase a diabetes alert dog and redirect them toward proven management strategies, such as continuous glucose monitors. “Future research should evaluate whether and how these expenses contribute to financial distress in the larger population of patients with diabetes, including those who do not use crowdfunding,” the authors concluded.