health care safety net

Docs Not Always Caring for Medicaid Patients

More than a quarter of all doctors enrolled to serve Medicaid patients in 2021 did not serve any Medicaid patients at all while another ten percent treated fewer than 10 Medicaid patients, according to a new Health Affairs study. Among different types of doctors, primary care physicians and cardiologists were most likely to care for higher numbers of Medicaid patients while Medicaid patients seeking the services of psychiatrists were mostly out of luck. Many of the doctors who care for Medicaid patients, and especially those who do not, cite reimbursement that is lower than – and often much lower than [...]

Non-Profit Hospitals Face Near-Term Challenges

The end of Affordable Care Act enhanced health insurance premiums will pose a financial challenge for many of the nation’s non-profit hospitals. The challenge to hospitals will be greatest in states that did not take advantage of Affordable Care Act Medicaid expansion and those with especially large concentrations of rural hospitals that also lack a robust health care safety net. On safer ground will be hospitals in states that do have strong health care safety nets or that have taken recent steps to attempt to fill the void left by the expired insurance premium subsidies. Learn more about the challenges [...]