Studies from School of Medicine Yield New Data on Managed Care (The Association Between Insurance Type and Cost-Related Delay in Care: A Survey)

By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Weekly News -- A new study on Managed Care is now available. According to news reporting from Springfield, Massachusetts, by VerticalNews journalists, research stated, "Massachusetts has insurance rates similar to those projected under the Affordable Care Act, but many of the state's patients are insured through private insurance plans with high out-of-pocket costs. We aimed to explore the relationship between insurance type (private vs public) and delays in care due to cost, stratified by income. Cross-sectional study."

The news correspondents obtained a quote from the research from the School of Medicine, "We conducted a study of English-speaking adults recruited from the waiting rooms of the emergency department or outpatient clinics of a large healthcare system in western Massachusetts. Our primary outcome was the association between insurance type and cost-related delay in care, stratified by income. Of 800 individuals approached, 619 (77%) completed the survey. Participants were 60.6% male and 40.2% white, 37.2% Hispanic, and 12.6% black. The majority (61.4%) of those surveyed had public insurance, 34.1% had private insurance, and 4.5% were uninsured. Overall, 13.3% reported delays in seeking care that were related to cost. The impact of insurance on delay of care differed significantly by income tertile (P=.02): in the middle-income group ($12,500 to <$25,000 per person annually), privately insured respondents were more likely to delay care due to cost compared with publicly insured subjects (15.6% vs 8.1%; odds ratio [OR], 4.4; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.9-10.2, unadjusted; OR, 2.2; 95% CI, 0.9-5.8, adjusted). Cost-related delays in care are prevalent despite the presence of an insurance mandate."

According to the news reporters, the research concluded: "Middle-income, privately insured patients report more cost-related delays in care compared with publicly insured patients with similar incomes."

For more information on this research see: The Association Between Insurance Type and Cost-Related Delay in Care: A Survey. American Journal of Managed Care, 2017;23(7):435-442,141-151. American Journal of Managed Care can be contacted at: Managed Care & Healthcare Communications Llc, 666 Plainsboro Rd, Ste 300, Plainsboro, NJ 08536, USA.

Our news journalists report that additional information may be obtained by contacting T. Lagu, Baystate Univ Massachusetts, Sch Med, Springfield, MA, United States. Additional authors for this research include M.B. Rothberg, B. Johnson, J. Miller, M. AlMahmoud, J. Friderici, S.L. Goff and S. Al Rowas.

Keywords for this news article include: Springfield, Massachusetts, United States, North and Central America, Managed Care, School of Medicine.

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