Public Clinic Care and Eligibility

Rheumatoid arthritis functional disability in a public health care clinic.

To the Editor: The Health Assessment Questionnaire Disability Index (HAQ-DI) is widely used for measuring functioning in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA), since it is a better predictor of future morbidity, mortality and work disability than other disease outcome variables.1-2 Median scores for public and private health care patients with RA in the USA range between 1 and 1.253 compared ...

Public Insurance Eligibility and Enrollment for Special Health Care Needs Children

We estimated the proportion of children with special health care needs (CSHCN) eligible for Medicaid and the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) using data from the 2000 and 2001 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) and an algorithm to determine likely eligibility. We find that CSHCN were more likely to be eligible compared with other children (50 versus 43 percent), and that t...

Revised eligibility requirements for ambulatory care.

Lung Cancer Care Before and After Medicare Eligibility

Uninsured and underinsured near-elderly may not have timely investigation, diagnosis, or care of cancer. Prior studies suggest Medicare eligibility confers significant and substantial reductions in mortality and increases in health service utilization. We compared 2245 patients diagnosed with lung cancer at ages 64.5 to 65 years and 2512 patients aged 65 to 65.5 years, with 2492 patients aged 6...

Prostate Cancer Care Before and After Medicare Eligibility

Prior studies suggest Medicare eligibility confers significant and substantial reductions in mortality and beneficial increases in health service utilization. We compared 13,882 patients diagnosed with prostate cancer at ages 63 to 64 years with 14,774 patients diagnosed at ages 65 to 66 (controls) in 2004 to 2007. Compared with controls, patients diagnosed with prostate cancer before Medicare ...