Money Worries Delay MI Treatment

[MedPage Today, April 13, 2010] Lack of insurance and financial concerns keep patients from treating a heart attack like the emergency it is, researchers affirmed.

More than two in every five heart attack patients in the study fit into these two groups, they wrote in the April 14 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. This despite the fact that patients cannot be turned away for emergency care regardless of ability to pay, the researchers said.

"Over the last five to 10 years we've done a terrific job of improving time to treatment once you make it to the hospital," said Timothy Henry, MD, of the Minneapolis Heart Institute at Abbott Northwestern Hospital in Minneapolis. "But the area that's been very difficult to improve upon is the time it takes the patient from the onset of chest pain to actually go to the hospital."

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