Association of State Access Standards With Accessibility to Specialists for Medicaid Managed Care Enrollees.

ABSTRACT:

Importance

Medicaid recipients have consistently reported less timely access to specialists than patients with other types of coverage. By 2018, state Medicaid agencies will be required by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to enact time and distance standards for managed care organizations to ensure an adequate supply of specialist physicians for enrollees; however, there have been no published studies of whether these policies have significant effects on access to specialty care.

Objective

To compare ratings of access to specialists for adult Medicaid and commercial enrollees before and after the implementation of specialty access standards.

Design, setting, and participants

We used Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems survey data

SUBMITTER: Ndumele CD 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5710214 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature