Publications by authors named "Karen A Overstreet"
Background: Few studies have engaged patients and caregivers in interventions to alleviate financial hardship. We collaborated with Consumer Education and Training Services (CENTS), Patient Advocate Foundation (PAF), and Family Reach (FR) to assess the feasibility of enrolling patient-caregiver dyads in a program that provides financial counseling, insurance navigation, and assistance with medical and cost of living expenses.
Methods: Patients with solid tumors aged ≥18 years and their primary caregiver received a financial education video, monthly contact with a CENTS counselor and PAF case manager for 6 months, and referral to FR for help with unpaid cost of living bills (eg, transportation or housing).
Purpose: Patients with cancer are more likely to file for bankruptcy than the general population, but the impact of severe financial distress on health outcomes among patients with cancer is not known.
Methods: We linked Western Washington SEER Cancer Registry records with federal bankruptcy records for the region. By using propensity score matching to account for differences in several demographic and clinical factors between patients who did and did not file for bankruptcy, we then fit Cox proportional hazards models to examine the relationship between bankruptcy filing and survival.
Objective: To estimate the prevalence of medical debt among traumatic brain injury (TBI) and spinal cord injury (SCI) patients who discharged their debts through bankruptcy.
Design: A cross-sectional comparison of bankruptcy filings of injured versus randomly selected bankruptcy petitioners.
Setting: Patients hospitalized with SCI or TBI (1996-2002) and personal bankruptcy petitioners (2001-2004) in western Washington State.