Studies from Johns Hopkins University Have Provided New Data on Academic Medicine (The Access Partnership: Expanding Outpatient Health Care Access for Uninsured Patients At One Academic Medical Center): Health and Medicine – Academic Medicine

2025 DEC 29 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- A new study on Health and Medicine - Academic Medicine is now available. According to news reporting from Baltimore, Maryland, by NewsRx journalists, research stated, “ProblemIn the United States, immigrants who lack legal immigration status are at risk of being uninsured because they are not eligible for federally subsidized health insurance. Although affordable primary care is available to this population at federally qualified health centers, outpatient specialty care remains unaffordable.ApproachThe Access Partnership (TAP) began in 2009 at the Johns Hopkins Health System to provide outpatient care access to individuals with financial need who are ineligible for subsidized health insurance.”

Financial support for this research came from National Institutes of Health (NIH) - USA.

The news correspondents obtained a quote from the research from Johns Hopkins University, “Spanish-English bilingual navigators, located at community-based clinics, help patients with TAP applications and scheduling appointments. Specialty referrals are reviewed for medical necessity. When the Johns Hopkins Health System financial assistance policy was revised in 2020 to remove noncitizen exclusions, TAP eligibility was revised (TAP-FA).OutcomesFrom January 1, 2020, to March 31, 2024, 6,053 patients enrolled in TAP-FA. The majority were at least 18 years old (5,209; 86.1%), of Latino ethnicity (5,133; 84.8%), and Spanish speaking (5,422; 89.6%). TAP-FA facilitated 39,061 outpatient appointments: 7,612 (19.5%) for hospital-based primary care, 18,752 (48.0%) for specialty care, and 12,697 (32.5%) for radiology. The most common adult specialty appointments were ophthalmology (n = 4,833), orthopedic surgery (n = 1,520), and cardiology (n = 1,472). Among children and adolescents, the most common specialty appointments were ophthalmology (n = 250), otorhinolaryngology (n = 84), and plastic surgery (n = 68).Next StepsTAP-FA is an innovative charity care model operationalizing a financial assistance policy for individuals with financial need who are ineligible for subsidized insurance. In the absence of federal policies to expand access to care for immigrants in this population, academic medical centers have an opportunity to address this gap.”

According to the news reporters, the research concluded: “The TAP-FA model provides a blueprint for the provision of inclusive and equitable care for patients without access to insurance and could be implemented at other academic medical centers.”

This research has been peer-reviewed.

For more information on this research see: The Access Partnership: Expanding Outpatient Health Care Access for Uninsured Patients At One Academic Medical Center. Academic Medicine, 2025;100(12):1464-1468. Academic Medicine can be contacted at: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, Two Commerce Sq, 2001 Market St, Philadelphia, PA 19103, USA. (Lippincott Williams and Wilkins - www.lww.com; Academic Medicine - http://journals.lww.com/academicmedicine/pages/default.aspx)

Our news journalists report that additional information may be obtained by contacting Kathleen R. Page, Johns Hopkins University, School of Medicine, Division of Infectious Diseases, Med, Baltimore, MD 21287, United States. Additional authors for this research include Jane Abernethy, Katherine Shaw, Diego A. Martinez, Anna Vargas, Carlos Lopez-Bray, Carolina Lopez-Silva, Edward W. Corty, Adrianna Moore and Sarah J. Conway.

The direct object identifier (DOI) for that additional information is: https://doi.org/10.1097/ACM.0000000000006222. This DOI is a link to an online electronic document that is either free or for purchase, and can be your direct source for a journal article and its citation.

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