Health News
- State Says Many Screenings Of Medicaid Patients More Than Doubled After Program Was Expanded Under Obamacare
Countering assertions that Kentucky's Medicaid expansion doesn't guarantee health care, state officials have presented data showing that "Kentuckians on Medicaid were far more likely to get cancer screenings, physicals and dental check-ups after...
- Older Rural Residents Are More Likely To Seek Care At Rural Hospitals, National Study Finds
Rural hospitals are more likely to serve older patients seeking hospitalization, while younger rural residents seek medical care in urban areas, says a study by the National Center for Health Statistics at the federal Centers for Disease Control....
- As Edelen Begins Hearings On Rural Hospitals' Finances, State Gives Figures On Medicaid Expansion And Reimbursement
By Al Cross Kentucky Health News The expansion of the federal-state Medicaid program funneled $284 million to Kentucky health-care providers in the first quarter of the year, the state Cabinet for Health and Family Services says in a report prepared for...
- Expanding Medicaid In Kentucky Would Add 5 Percent To The State's Cost Over The Next 10 Years, National Study Predicts
Expanding Medicaid to people making up to 138 percent of the poverty level under federal health reform and its heavy subsidies would cost Kentucky about 5 percent more for Medicaid over the next 10 years than doing nothing, the Kaiser Family Foundation said...
- Who Is On Medicaid Already? Not All Poor Kentuckians, Foundation President Says On Op-ed Distributed To Kentucky Newspapers
By Susan Zepeda President and CEO, Foundation for a Healthy Kentucky In the wake of the recent Supreme Court decision upholding much of the Affordable Care Act, states have many factors to weigh. Importantly, SCOTUS affirmed the right of states to opt...
Health News
'Snapshot' from continuing study of health reform in Ky. shows steep drop in amount of uncompensated care at hospitals
A continuing study of federal health reform's impact in Kentucky has found a big drop in uncompensated care at hospitals and broader insurance coverage than in adjoining states.
The Foundation for a Healthy Kentucky is paying the State Health Access Data Assistance Center at the University of Minnesota more than $280,000 to study how the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is affecting Kentuckians.
Under the reform law, Kentucky expanded eligibility for the federal-state Medicaid program to people in households with incomes up to 138 percent of the federal poverty level. Hospitals welcomed the expansion, because it brought more people who hadn't been getting care into the system, but say it has also been challenging because Medicaid pays about 82 percent of their cost of providing care.
State officials say, and hospitals acknowledge, that hospitals now have much less uncompensated care, or bad debts, because more people have coverage. The study's first "snapshot" of the law's impacts puts numbers on that, reporting that uncompensated care dropped preciptously when the expansion took effect in January 2014, falling to $83 million in the last quarter of the year from a high of $288 million about a year earlier.
Medicaid expansion has also helped reduce the percentage of people without health coverage more in Kentucky than in adjoining states. In December 2014, 9.8 percent of Kentuckians reported having no health coverage, well under the adjoining-state average of 12.5 percent and the national average of 12.9 percent. The figures come from The Gallup Organization, which reported last month that the Kentucky figure had fallen to 9 percent. The study did not mention the more recent figure; it was limited to impacts through the first quarter of 2015.
The study reported that during the quarter, Medicaid funded 9,314 breast cancer screenings, 4,586 hepatitis C screenings, and thousands of other preventive services," a foundation news release said. There were 5,675 cases of substance-abuse treatment, which is newly eligible for Medicaid, during the quarter.
The study also noted that Medicaid enrollment remains concentrated in Eastern Kentucky, with 32 percent of the total; greater Louisville has 19 percent. For the study presentation in graphics, click here.
Next spring, the researchers will conduct a telephone survey about the impacts of the law. ?This multiyear study from a nationally known independent source will provide valuable data to inform health policy decisions,? Susan Zepeda, president and CEO of the foundation, said in the release. She told Deborah Yetter of The Courier-Journal, "We're really making a difference in the lives of Kentuckians. More people will have those health insurance cards and have access to timely health care, and that's quite a positive story."
The Foundation for a Healthy Kentucky is paying the State Health Access Data Assistance Center at the University of Minnesota more than $280,000 to study how the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is affecting Kentuckians.
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| How to read this chart: While the urban and rural figures overlap, perhaps suggesting that rural hospitals have most of the bad debts, they are actually separate totals. So, the high of nearly $160 million is only for the urban hospitals; the high for rural hospitals, in the same quarter, was $130 million. The actual total that quarter: $288 million. |
State officials say, and hospitals acknowledge, that hospitals now have much less uncompensated care, or bad debts, because more people have coverage. The study's first "snapshot" of the law's impacts puts numbers on that, reporting that uncompensated care dropped preciptously when the expansion took effect in January 2014, falling to $83 million in the last quarter of the year from a high of $288 million about a year earlier.
The study reported that during the quarter, Medicaid funded 9,314 breast cancer screenings, 4,586 hepatitis C screenings, and thousands of other preventive services," a foundation news release said. There were 5,675 cases of substance-abuse treatment, which is newly eligible for Medicaid, during the quarter.
The study also noted that Medicaid enrollment remains concentrated in Eastern Kentucky, with 32 percent of the total; greater Louisville has 19 percent. For the study presentation in graphics, click here.
Next spring, the researchers will conduct a telephone survey about the impacts of the law. ?This multiyear study from a nationally known independent source will provide valuable data to inform health policy decisions,? Susan Zepeda, president and CEO of the foundation, said in the release. She told Deborah Yetter of The Courier-Journal, "We're really making a difference in the lives of Kentuckians. More people will have those health insurance cards and have access to timely health care, and that's quite a positive story."
- State Says Many Screenings Of Medicaid Patients More Than Doubled After Program Was Expanded Under Obamacare
Countering assertions that Kentucky's Medicaid expansion doesn't guarantee health care, state officials have presented data showing that "Kentuckians on Medicaid were far more likely to get cancer screenings, physicals and dental check-ups after...
- Older Rural Residents Are More Likely To Seek Care At Rural Hospitals, National Study Finds
Rural hospitals are more likely to serve older patients seeking hospitalization, while younger rural residents seek medical care in urban areas, says a study by the National Center for Health Statistics at the federal Centers for Disease Control....
- As Edelen Begins Hearings On Rural Hospitals' Finances, State Gives Figures On Medicaid Expansion And Reimbursement
By Al Cross Kentucky Health News The expansion of the federal-state Medicaid program funneled $284 million to Kentucky health-care providers in the first quarter of the year, the state Cabinet for Health and Family Services says in a report prepared for...
- Expanding Medicaid In Kentucky Would Add 5 Percent To The State's Cost Over The Next 10 Years, National Study Predicts
Expanding Medicaid to people making up to 138 percent of the poverty level under federal health reform and its heavy subsidies would cost Kentucky about 5 percent more for Medicaid over the next 10 years than doing nothing, the Kaiser Family Foundation said...
- Who Is On Medicaid Already? Not All Poor Kentuckians, Foundation President Says On Op-ed Distributed To Kentucky Newspapers
By Susan Zepeda President and CEO, Foundation for a Healthy Kentucky In the wake of the recent Supreme Court decision upholding much of the Affordable Care Act, states have many factors to weigh. Importantly, SCOTUS affirmed the right of states to opt...