The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act created more insured Americans. But one thing it can’t create is more medical providers.

A new survey from the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Commonwealth Fund found that access to medical services for these newly minted, insured folks, which was forecast to be a serious issue, hasn’t turned out to be a problem, at least not so far.

Says the report: “Most primary care doctors, nurse practitioners, and physician assistants report an increase in Medicaid or newly insured patients since the Affordable Care Act's (ACA) major coverage provisions took effect, yet little change in their ability to provide high-quality care.”

The researchers said that about half the primary care clinicians interviewed say their patient volume is up since the reform act took effect.

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An even larger percentage reported that there are newly insured patients coming in for service, covered by PPACA insurance. About the same percentage say the added caseload hasn’t negatively affected their ability to provide patients with high quality health care services.

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“Millions of Americans have gained coverage since the Affordable Care Act took effect, and previous surveys have shown that most have been able to find doctors and get the health care they need,” said Commonwealth Fund President David Blumenthal, M.D. “This study provides evidence that primary care providers have been able to maintain quality of care for all of their patients, including those with Medicaid and new coverage.”

“Physicians are highly trained professionals, but when it comes to the Affordable Care Act, they turn into partisans, the same way the general public does,” Kaiser Family Foundation President and CEO Drew Altman said. “The survey finds that physicians who are Republicans are much more likely to perceive negative effects from the law, while those who are Democrats are far more likely to see positive ones.”

Among the study’s other findings:

Most doctors and other practitioners say their patients' satisfaction and care experiences have not changed since January 2014. Equal shares of doctors say satisfaction has improved and gotten worse, while nurse practitioners and physician assistants are somewhat more likely to say it improved.
About four in 10 primary care physicians say that almost all their patients who request a same- or next-day appointment can get one, and another quarter say that most of their patients can. These rates are similar to those measured in 2009 and 2012 by previous Commonwealth Fund surveys of primary care physicians.
Primary care physicians who have seen an increase in Medicaid or newly insured patients are less likely to say almost all their patients can access a same- or next-day appointment. This might stem in part from preexisting differences in capacity; for instance, those seeing more newly insured patients are more likely to work in community clinics, few of which provide same- or next-day appointments to all patients.
83 percent of primary care physicians continue to accept new patients, down slightly from 89 percent in 2012. The share accepting new Medicaid patients, 50 percent, is essentially unchanged.
40 percent of primary care providers say that the time they can spend with each patient has gotten worse since January 2014.
About three in 10 physicians say they are "somewhat" or "very" dissatisfied with the amount of time they are able to spend with patients.

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Doctors effectively handling increase in PPACA patients

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