People with private health insurance coverage have better access to primary care providers than do their counterparts who are covered by Medicaid and Medicare.
But the generally accepted notion that the latter patients frequently go to emergency rooms for non-emergency treatment due to a lack of understanding about receiving treatment simply isn't true. Easier access, not "differences in patient-perceived acuity for patients covered by Medicaid [and Medicare] insurance," is responsible for this well-documented trend.
So say University of Colorado School of Medicine researchers who crunched data on 4,606 patients gathered during the 2011 National Health Interview Survey.
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Dan Cook
Dan Cook is a journalist and communications consultant based in Portland, OR. During his journalism career he has been a reporter and editor for a variety of media companies, including American Lawyer Media, BusinessWeek, Newhouse Newspapers, Knight-Ridder, Time Inc., and Reuters. He specializes in health care and insurance related coverage for BenefitsPRO.
