A new 11-country Commonwealth Fund study in Health Affairs found U.S. adults still struggle with healthcare access and affordability.
For the study, researchers conducted telephone surveys in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States. The interviews took place between March and June 2016 among adults age 18 and older.
Here are five survey findings.
1. The survey found U.S. adults are more likely than those in the 10 other countries to go without needed healthcare due to costs. Thirty-three percent of U.S. adults went without recommended care, did not see a physician when sick or failed to fill a prescription because of costs. That's a decrease from the 2013 survey (37 percent). Comparitively, as few as 7 percent of survey respondents in the U.K. and Germany and 8 percent in the Netherlands and Sweden said they experienced those issues with affordability.
2. Fifty percent of U.S. adults said healthcare access was a problem on the weekends and evenings without going to an emergency department, according to the survey. That compares to between 40 and 64 percent of adults in the other countries. The Netherlands had the lowest rate (25 percent).
3. Nineteen percent of U.S. adults and 24 percent of French adults were the most likely to say that their medical records or test results had not been available at the time of an appointment or that duplicate tests had been ordered in the past two years, according to the survey. Those problems weren't as frequent in the other countries.
4. Fourteen percent of chronically ill U.S. adults said they did not get the support they needed from healthcare providers to manage their conditions, according to the survey. This was twice the rate of Australia, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, and Switzerland.
5. According to the survey, U.S. healthcare performed comparatively well in the following areas: timely access to specialists, conversations with physicians about leading a healthy life, and coordinated hospital discharge planning.
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