There is a clear need to develop better estimates of dual (Medicare and Medicaid) enrollees and the subpopulation of dual enrollees who receive full Medicaid benefits. Dual enrollees that may receive full Medicaid benefits include: qualified Medi-care beneficiaries (QMBs), specified low-income Medicare beneficiaries (SLMBs), and other dual beneficiaries—a group that includes medically needy/spe...

As part of the Affordable Care Act, primary care physicians providing services to patients insured through Medicaid in some states will receive higher payments in 2013 and 2014 than in the past. Payments for some services will increase to match Medicare rates. This change may lead to wider acceptance of new Medicaid patients among primary care providers. Using data from the 2011–12 National Amb...

BACKGROUND The 2000 Public Health Service Clinical Practice Guideline, Treating Tobacco Use and Dependence, recommends health insurance coverage for tobacco-dependence treatments proven effective in helping smokers to quit. Two states with comprehensive coverage for tobacco-dependence treatments in their Medicaid programs were selected to document awareness of coverage for tobacco-dependence tr...

BACKGROUND Medicaid and uninsured populations are a significant focus of current healthcare reform. We hypothesized that outcomes after coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) in the United States is dependent on primary payer status. METHODS AND RESULTS From 2003 to 2007, 1,250,619 isolated CABG operations were evaluated using the Nationwide Inpatient Sample (NIS) database. Patients were stra...

The distribution of Medicaid hospital discharges and expenditures by major diagnosis group for Medicaid enrollees in California, Michigan, and New York during 1982 are examined in this article. Although hospital expenditures represent a major component of Medicaid expenditures, the extent of variation in Medicaid inpatient utilization and expenditures across diagnoses and between States has not...

CONTEXT Undocumented immigrants and legal immigrants who have been in the United States less than 5 years are excluded from Medicaid eligibility, with the exception of limited coverage for emergency conditions (Emergency Medicaid). New immigrant population growth has been rapid in recent years, but little is known about use of health services by this group or the conditions for which Emergency ...

OBJECTIVE Low dental care service utilization among Medicaid-enrolled children has often been attributed to low Medicaid reimbursement levels. The purpose of this study was to provide estimates of preventive dental care utilization by Medicaid-enrolled children with special health care needs (CSHCN) and investigate the association of Medicaid preventive dental care reimbursement levels with the...

Since the enactment of Medicaid in 1965, states have had the option of offering beneficiaries enrollment in managed care arrangements. With the advent of mandatory managed care reaching millions of beneficiaries (including a growing proportion of disabled recipients), the amount and scope of litigation involving Medicaid managed care plans can be expected to grow. A review of the current litiga...

The objective of this study was to use audited hospital financial statements to identify predictors of payer mix and financial performance in safety net hospitals prior to the Affordable Care Act. We analyzed the 2010 financial statements of 98 large, urban safety net hospital systems in 34 states, supplemented with data on population demographics, hospital features, and state policies. We used...

OBJECTIVES To assess the effect of insurance type (Medicaid, Medicare, and private insurance) on fragility fracture patients' access to endocrinology specialists in the postoperative period. MATERIALS AND METHODS The research team called 247 board-certified endocrinologists in 8 representative states. The caller requested an appointment for her fictitious mother to be evaluated for osteoporos...