Author Interviews, Cost of Health Care, Primary Care / 28.02.2017
Primary Care Wait Times For Medicaid Patients Increased Modestly Under Affordable Care Act
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Molly Candon, PhD
Fellow
Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics, The Wharton School
Center for Mental Health Policy and Services Research, Perelman School of Medicine
University of Pennsylvania
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: Primary care practices are less likely to schedule appointments with Medicaid patients compared to the privately insured, largely due to lower reimbursement rates for providers. Given the gap in access, concerns have been raised that Medicaid enrollees may struggle to translate their coverage into care. Despite the substantial increase in demand for care resulting from provisions in the Affordable Care Act (ACA), our 10-state audit study recently published in JAMA Internal Medicine finds that primary care appointment availability for new patients with Medicaid increased 5.4 percentage points between 2012 and 2016, while appointment availability for patients with private coverage did not change.
Over the same time period, both Medicaid patients and the privately insured experienced slight increases in wait times.
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