Rationing Care for Children in Medicaid and CHIP
Physicians experience much greater difficulty referring children in Medicaid and CHIP to specialty care, compared to privately insured children. On the basis of the physician survey, more than three times as many participating physicians—84 percent—experience difficulty referring Medicaid and CHIP children to specialty care as experience difficulty referring privately insured children—26 percent. For all children, physicians most frequently cited difficulty with specialty referrals for mental health, dermatology, and neurology.
Perfect timing on this post. Especially in light of the highly touted results from the Oregon Heatlh Insurance Experiment.
It’s because specialists don’t want to work for fees paying 59% of market any more than primary care physicians want patients paying 59% of market fees.
This is a reality a lot of people on the left insist on not coming to grips with.
Very sad. We grownups should have to live with the results if bad voting/policy decisions. But, it is really sad to see kids not get the referrals they need.
Didn’t an earlier post today bemoan the oversupply of specialists? Guess the GAO missed the memo about having more primary care physicians no matter what.