Although low fees discourage physicians from treating Medicaid patients, payment delays also play an important role in physician decisions to avoid Medicaid patients, according to a study by the Center for Studying Health System Change (HSC), published as a Web Exclusive in the journal Health Affairs.
Previous research has shown that about half of U.S. physicians accept all new Medicaid patients, compared with more than 70 percent of physicians accepting all new privately insured and Medicare patients. Medicaid fee levels vary considerably across states, and research has consistently shown that Medicaid participation by physicians is higher in states with higher fees than in states with lower fees. Less attention has been paid to the role of administrative burdens--including payment delays--on physicians' decisions to treat Medicaid patients.
The new study in Health Affairs, titled “Do Reimbursement Delays Discourage Medicaid Participation by Physicians?”, examined the effect of variation in average reimbursement times across states on physicians' willingness to accept Medicaid patients, finding that payment delays can offset the effects of higher Medicaid payment rates on physician participation.
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