The Medicaid Payment Provision Under Obamacare

The Medicaid Payment Provision Under Obamacare.
Sweetening Medicaid payments to primary-care providers does place appointments for first-time patients more extensively available, a new research suggests. The finding offers what the researchers say is the first evidence that one of the aims of Obamacare is working - that increasing Medicaid reimbursements for rudimentary care to more generous Medicare levels increases constant access to health care. Medicaid is the government's health insurance program for the poor. The results were published online Jan 21, 2015 in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Medicaid notoriously pays providers less than what Medicare and reserved insurers gain for the same services. Policymakers were disquieted that the supply of primary-care doctors willing to see Medicaid enrollees after the inflation of health coverage under the Affordable Care Act would not meet patient demand. To give a speech to their concern, the law directed states to raise Medicaid payments for primary-care services in 2013 and 2014. The increases diversified by state, since some were already paying rates closer to Medicare rates and others were paying less than half of Medicare rates, the den authors noted.

States received an estimated $12 billion in additional federal funding over the two-year while to ratchet up Medicaid payments to available primary-care providers, according to the American Academy of Family Physicians. However, the additional federal funding expired at the end of 2014 and, so far, only 15 states arrangement to continue the reimbursement increases, the con noted. To assess the effectiveness of the Medicaid payment provision under Obamacare, researchers from the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia and the Urban Institute in Washington, DC, received funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Trained callers posing as patients contacted primary-care offices in 10 states during two point periods: before and after the reimbursement increases kicked in. Callers indicated having coverage either through Medicaid or restricted guaranty and requested new-patient appointments. After the clear hike, Medicaid assignation availability rose significantly, the study found. In the states with the largest increases in Medicaid reimbursement, gains in choice availability were particularly large, the researchers noted.

US Experts Have Established Reasons Of Decrease In The Pregnancy Rate

US Experts Have Established Reasons Of Decrease In The Pregnancy Rate.
Pregnancy rates on to lessening in the United States, a federal broadcast released Dec 2013 shows. The rate reached a 12-year low in 2009, when there were about 102 pregnancies for every 1000 women ancient 15 to 44, according to the latest statistics from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That reprimand is 12 percent below the 1990 estimate of about 116 pregnancies per 1000 women.

Only the 1997 rate of 102 has been lower during the by 30 years, according to the report. Experts said two factors are driving the downward trend: improved access to extraction control and decisions by women to put off childbearing until later in life. Those trends have caused the normal age of pregnancy to shift upward. Pregnancy rates for teenagers also have reached unforgettable lows that extend across all racial and ethnic groups.

Between 1990 and 2009, the pregnancy price fell 51 percent for white and black teenagers, and 40 percent for Hispanic teenagers. The teen blood rate dropped 39 percent between 1991 and 2009, and the teen abortion bawl out decreased by half during the same period. Overall, pregnancy rates have continued to descend for women younger than 30. "The amount of knowledge that young women have about their parturition control options is very different compared to a few decades ago," said Dr Margaret Appleton, the man of the division of obstetrics and gynecology at the Scott andamp; White Clinic in College Station, Texas.