Acceptance of New Medicaid Patients by Primary Care Physicians and Experiences with Physician Availability among Children on Medicaid or the Children's Health Insurance Program.

OBJECTIVE: To estimate the relationship between physicians' acceptance of new Medicaid patients and access to health care. DATA SOURCES: The National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey (NAMCS) Electronic Health Records Survey and the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) 2011/2012. STUDY
DESIGN: Linear probability models estimated the relationship between measures of experiences with physician availability among children on Medicaid or the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) from the NHIS and state-level estimates of the percent of primary care physicians accepting new Medicaid patients from the NAMCS, controlling for other factors. PRINCIPAL
FINDINGS: Nearly 16 percent of children with a significant health condition or development delay had a doctor's office or clinic indicate that the child's health insurance was not accepted in states with less than 60 percent of physicians accepting new Medicaid patients, compared to less than 4 percent in states with at least 75 percent of physicians accepting new Medicaid patients. Adjusted estimates and estimates for other measures of access to care were similar.
CONCLUSIONS: Measures of experiences with physician availability for children on Medicaid/CHIP were generally good, though better in states where more primary care physicians accepted new Medicaid patients. © Published 2015. This article is a U.S.Government work and is in the public domain in the USA.