What will the passage of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) mean for households and employers? Over the coming months, there should be stories about how the final regulations will be determined. Also many states will start setting up their insurance exchanges. What will these changes mean for individuals and employers? Will companies start changing incentives for their employees and health care providers?
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
Shifting in supply and demand curves for ED visits? Maybe not
What I found most intersting about this article, is that despite increased supply of insured patients by 7.7% in the population, the ulitization (demand) was relatively unaffected, when compared to trends in non-reformed states.
As ED visits tends to be of higher cost, it seems health reform needs to consider aiming at incentivizing lower cost options for consumers- for example Urgent Care clinics, to effectively lower cost at least as related to outpatient ED visits.
As the article noted, a large fraction of ED visits are in-patient and they typically are very expensive. I agree with you Dan, though there is an increased supply of patients, there has not been a significant change in the ED visits. Which in my opinion, is a positive trend. One might argue that this could be because of access to primary care and preventive care services as more people are insured and afford to go to those facilities now. Studies showed that the ED visits are about 5-6 times more expensive than a regular physician visits. If the patient has no money to pay when he/she visits ED, the hospitals absorb the cost and passes along to the masses one way or other. This one of the reasons why the hospital visits are expensive. Hopefully, with more people insured with the reform, the cost of hospital stay would reduce there by providing affordable care for people in need.
What I found most intersting about this article, is that despite increased supply of insured patients by 7.7% in the population, the ulitization (demand) was relatively unaffected, when compared to trends in non-reformed states.
ReplyDeleteAs ED visits tends to be of higher cost, it seems health reform needs to consider aiming at incentivizing lower cost options for consumers- for example Urgent Care clinics, to effectively lower cost at least as related to outpatient ED visits.
As the article noted, a large fraction of ED visits are in-patient and they typically are very expensive. I agree with you Dan, though there is an increased supply of patients, there has not been a significant change in the ED visits. Which in my opinion, is a positive trend. One might argue that this could be because of access to primary care and preventive care services as more people are insured and afford to go to those facilities now.
ReplyDeleteStudies showed that the ED visits are about 5-6 times more expensive than a regular physician visits. If the patient has no money to pay when he/she visits ED, the hospitals absorb the cost and passes along to the masses one way or other. This one of the reasons why the hospital visits are expensive. Hopefully, with more people insured with the reform, the cost of hospital stay would reduce there by providing affordable care for people in need.