I found it interesting that 71% of physicians said they expected emergency visits to increase after the passage of the Affordable Care Act. From my understanding uninsured population forms a big portion of ED visits exactly because people cannot afford to get medical care on a regular basis. So they end up in ED in crisis because hospitals cannot turn them down due to inability to pay. With insurance in play that population will be able to go to primary care doctors, see specialists (an ability to see a cardiologist on a regular basis can be crucial for someone with chronic heart failure) and take care of their problems well in advance possible ED visits. Also one of the argument for increasing ED utilization was reducing in out-of-pocket costs for ED visits, especially in the face of physician shortages. In the previous article it was shown that physicians and nurses demand won’t increase much. Compare to some other health care workers, physicians in MA increased only by 2.5%. So there shouldn’t be much physicians shortage for new insured population. On the other hand we should not forget that MA had somewhat lower number of uninsured in the first place. In 2005 there were less then 10% of uninsured compare to 16% in the rest of US. So we can learn from Massachusetts experience. But only so much.
I found it interesting that 71% of physicians said they expected emergency visits to increase after the passage of the Affordable Care Act. From my understanding uninsured population forms a big portion of ED visits exactly because people cannot afford to get medical care on a regular basis. So they end up in ED in crisis because hospitals cannot turn them down due to inability to pay. With insurance in play that population will be able to go to primary care doctors, see specialists (an ability to see a cardiologist on a regular basis can be crucial for someone with chronic heart failure) and take care of their problems well in advance possible ED visits.
ReplyDeleteAlso one of the argument for increasing ED utilization was reducing in out-of-pocket costs for ED visits, especially in the face of physician shortages. In the previous article it was shown that physicians and nurses demand won’t increase much. Compare to some other health care workers, physicians in MA increased only by 2.5%. So there shouldn’t be much physicians shortage for new insured population.
On the other hand we should not forget that MA had somewhat lower number of uninsured in the first place. In 2005 there were less then 10% of uninsured compare to 16% in the rest of US. So we can learn from Massachusetts experience. But only so much.