Patients Are Way Behind on Tests for Chronic Conditions. Can You Help Them Catch Up?

One of the secondary consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, especially early on, has been that patients battling chronic conditions like hypertension, endocrine disorders, and arthritis took a step back from their ongoing care due to concerns about the virus. While that made sense at various points, the fact remains that they could be at greater risk for complications from their condition without even knowing it. This is certainly true of patients with diabetes. A study just presented at a virtual meeting of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes in the European, and as reported by Medscape News UK, revealed that 6.6 million diabetes tests, both diagnostic and monitoring, were missed between March 23, 2020 and September 30, 2020—with the researchers predicting that more than half a million people could have had high HbA1c levels, increasing their risk for nephropathy, retinopathy, neuropathy, and other complications. If your practice has the bandwidth, check in with patients whom you know have been diagnosed with diabetes. Help them get caught up if they’re behind on their monitoring. JUCM published a pair of articles that could be helpful in this regard. You can read Early Diabetes Screening in the Urgent Care, Part 1 and Early Diabetes Screening in the Urgent Care, Part 2 in our archive right now.