Care Access Challenges in Parkinson Disease and Movement Disorders: Fiona Gupta, MD

WATCH TIME: 2 minutes

“I make it a point to never stop trying. If access is an issue, I will always find what’s next. Do I need to go through extra steps just to get the patient the adequate therapy that they need? We should try to make [access] not a barrier, but it’s still a tremendous issue.”

Patients with Parkinson disease (PD) and other movement disorders—not unlike patients with neurological disorders in general—experience a slew of challenges related to access to care. These can range from limitations in cost or insurance coverage for treatment to the overall access to a specialist that can offer them the best treatment. These access issues are driven by a number of factors, and in their totality can be as complex as PD itself.

Fiona Gupta, MD, an assistant professor of neurology and director of the Movement Disorders Outreach Program at Mount Sinai Medical Center, is keenly aware of the challenges of access that these patients experience. At the 2nd Annual Advanced Therapeutics in Movement and Related Disorders (ATMRD) Congress, held by the PMD Alliance from June 8 to 11, 2023, in Washington, DC, she spoke on these difficulties to attendees, offering her perspective on how to approach them in order to solve, or at least mitigate, them for their patients.

While at ATRMD, Gupta spoke with NeurologyLive^® in detail about these issues, providing an overview of the expanding number of patients with PD and other movement disorders, such as essential tremor, and the increasing number of available treatments. She also discussed the unique challenges that patients and physicians face, and the importance of never giving up on getting patients what they need to experience the best care possible—and how having access to education on the newest options is key.

Click here for more coverage of ATMRD 2023.