Effects of health insurance on patient demand for physician services

Abstract

Background In recent years, policymakers have sought to reduce health disparities between the insured and uninsured through a federal health insurance expansion policy; however, disparities continue to persist among the insured population. One potential explanation is that the use of healthcare services varies by the type of health insurance coverage due to differences in the design of coverage. The aim of this study is to examine whether health insurance coverage type is associated with the structure and use of healthcare services. Methods The nationally representative Medical Expenditure Panel Survey and multinomial logistic regression are used to estimate the effects of different types of health coverage on the combinations of routine and emergency care sought and received. Results The multinomial logistic regression analysis for the overall sample revealed privately insured respondents reported higher use of routine care only p < 0.01 and lower use of emergency room care only (− 2.13%; p < 0.01) than the uninsured. The publicly insured reported similar trends for use of routine care only (17.93%; p < 0.01) as the privately insured, as compared to the uninsured. Both the privately and publicly insured reported higher use of a mixture of care; however, publicly insured were more likely to use a mixture of care (8.57%, p < 0.01). Conclusion The results show that health insurance is associated with higher use of the physician services, but does not promote the use of cost-effective schedules of care among the publicly insured.

The Demographics of Patients Presenting for Laryngological Care at an Academic Medical Center

“…We did not include new inpatient or emergency department consultations in our analysis. It has been shown that uninsured patients have a higher probability of utilizing emergency department care than patients with private insurance 29 …”

“…It has been shown that uninsured patients have a higher probability of utilizing emergency department care than patients with private insurance. 29 Finally, due to EMR limitations, we had to infer binary genders for patients in our data set. We acknowledge that gender is a spectrum and that individuals have their own unique gender identities; because of this, these inferences may have been inaccurate in some cases and have the potential to cause significant harm.…”

Association of a Patient’s Type of Insurance With Preventive Service Delivery

“…Patients with private and public insurance report higher rates of routine care than uninsured patients, and a lack of health insurance is associated with a lower probability of receiving recommended services that are due during a clinic visit [ 18 , 19 ]. A 2011 study showed the percentage of physicians accepting new patients with Medicaid was lower than the percentage accepting new self-pay, Medicare, or privately insured patients [ 20 ].…”