Uninsured ED and Inpatient Visits Down Since ACA

Uninsured hospital admissions and emergency department visits are down since passage of the Affordable Care Act.

And Medicaid-covered admissions and ER visits are up, according to a new analysis.

The report, published on the JAMA Network Open, found that ER visits by uninsured patients fell from 16 percent to eight percent between 2006 and 2016, with most of this decline after 2014, while uninsured discharges fell from six percent to four percent.

The rate of uninsured ER visits declined, moreover, at a time when overall ER visits continued to rise.

While the Affordable Care Act is likely the cause of most of these changes, other contributing factors include the emergence of urgent care facilities, telemedicine, and free-standing ERs as well as new payment models and rules.

Learn more in the JAMA Network Open article “US Emergency Department Visits and Hospital Discharges Among Uninsured Patients Before and After Implementation of the Affordable Care Act.”