Emergency department (ED) visits by the uninsured in Oregon underwent an “abrupt and sustained” increase after the state’s Medicaid program made substantial cuts of more than 50,000 beneficiaries in 2003, report researchers in the April issue of Annals of Emergency Medicine.
The researchers studied hospital billing data on more than 2.5 million visits to 26 Oregon EDs, sampled up to two years before and two years after the cutbacks. They found that, after the policy changes, ED visits by the uninsured increased from 6,682 per month in 2002 to 9,058 per month in 2004. However, Medicaid and commercially insured visits decreased, resulting in a slight decrease in overall ED visits. Read the article.
