Another upside of Medicaid expansion: Better, more timely surgical care
Particularly surprising was the speed at which the improvements took place, with better surgical quality results within two years of the expansion.
The Affordable Care Act's Medicaid expansion has shown to deliver patients better access to surgery and higher quality surgical care, according to a new study from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
This is the third recent study to find success in the controversial ACA provision under which the federal government funds state Medicaid programs taking on more patients, up to 138 percent of the federal poverty line.
[Also: Medicaid expansion helped hospitals survive by boosting revenue]
At the end of December, a study by Indiana University found that in doctors in states that expanded Medicaid were finding more early-stage cancer diagnoses than states that did not.
In October a report from the American Medical Association indicated that in Medicaid expansion states, doctors and hospitals enountered fewer uninsured people. AMA, in fact, found that 75.6 percent of practices treated uninsured patients in 2016, down from the 81.3 percent in 2012.
[Also: Why Medicaid expansion helps doctors detect cancer sooner]
Particularly surprising in the new Harvard research was the speed at which the improvements took place, with better surgical quality taking root less than two years after certain states elected to expand their Medicaid coverage.
The researchers looked at five years' worth of data from nearly 300,000 patients from 42 states who were admitted to hospitals for one of five common surgical conditions: appendicitis, cholecystitis, diverticulitis, peripheral artery disease or aortic aneurysm. The study analyzed trends in insurance coverage, timeliness of surgical care, and care outcomes both before the ACA's Medicaid expansion, from 2010-13, and after, comparing 27 states that chose to expand their Medicaid programs with 15 that chose not to expand.
Medicaid expansion was associated with a 7.5-percent decrease in the probability of patients being uninsured; an 8.6-percent increased probability of patients having Medicaid; a 1.8-percent increase in the probability of patients seeking care earlier, before their surgical conditions became complicated; and a 2.6-percent increase in patients' probability of receiving optimal care.
The researchers posited that the ACA's Medicaid expansion led patients with surgical conditions to seek treatment before complications set in. Being treated for these conditions earlier makes it more likely that they will have better health outcomes, they said.
The fate of the ACA and Medicaid remains a key policy debate, with the Trump Administration and congressional Republicans promoting reforms that would chip away at certain provisions of the law, potentially leading to fewer people covered under Medicaid.
Twitter: @JELagasse
Email the writer: jeff.lagasse@himssmedia.com
