Illinois emergency room visits increased after Obamacare, study says
"Emergency departments are already overcrowded, and bringing more patients in will continue to make that worse," said Dr.
Emergency visits in
The number of visits by uninsured people dropped in
The study adds to the conversation about the effectiveness of the health care law, as some other researchers have come to different conclusions.
The Affordable Care Act mandated that all Americans have health insurance and forbade insurers from denying coverage because of pre-existing conditions.
Since major parts of the Affordable Care Act went into effect, the percentage of nonelderly
One of the goals of expanding coverage to all was to reduce the use of pricey services, such as emergency department visits, which can sometimes be a last resort for people who don't see doctors regularly, according to the study.
But the study's authors noted that the spike in visits in
It's unknown whether the surge will persist, or if was a temporary result of people with long-untreated conditions flocking to emergency rooms once they got insurance, the study said.
"I think there's just going to be a lot more education," Bhatt said. "The learning curve on how to use coverage doesn't happen overnight."
"As people gain access to affordable, high-quality coverage, they are more likely to get the right care when they need it, but that transition takes time," Gold said.
The study also noted a potential lack of timely access to outpatient, primary and specialty care providers in
"Patients may believe they have no other option for timely and effective acute care besides the (emergency department)," according to the study.
Nelson couldn't immediately provide data Monday showing whether overall emergency visits are up at Advocate hospitals, though she said the system's emergency departments are busy.
But Nelson said Advocate has had success reducing emergency department visits among patients involved in certain Advocate programs. For example, care managers can see how patients are using the health system and reach out to them if they are visiting the ER when a primary physician would do. Community health workers also visit patients' homes to talk with them about the value of primary care doctors and alternatives to emergency care, she said.
The study's findings are in line with the results of a nationwide poll last year in which three-fourths of emergency physicians surveyed reported seeing increasing numbers of emergency visits. That poll was released by the
But the
Those mixed results suggest factors such as the number of people uninsured in a state, a lack of
Emergency department visits were increasing before the Affordable Care Act took effect, Dresden said, but the jumps revealed by the study go beyond those increases.
The study did not include federal hospitals such as
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