Measuring the impact of the Affordable Care Act Medicaid expansion on access to primary care using an interrupted time series approach.

ABSTRACT:

Background

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010, commonly referred to as the Affordable Care Act (ACA), was created to increase access to primary care, improve quality of care, and decrease healthcare costs. A key provision in the law that mandated expansion of state Medicaid programme changed when states were given the option to voluntarily expand Medicaid. Our study sought to measure the impact of ACA Medicaid expansion on preventable hospitalization (PH) rates, a measure of access to primary care.

Methods

We performed an interrupted time series analysis of quarterly hospitalization rates across eight states from 2012 to 2015. Segmented regression analysis was utilized to determine the impact of policy reform on PH rates.

Results

The Affordable Car

SUBMITTER: Brown EA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8101185 | biostudies-literature | 2021 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature