IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/hlthec/v25y2016i5p529-542.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Copayments and Emergency Department Use Among Adult Medicaid Enrollees

Author

Listed:
  • Lindsay M. Sabik
  • Sabina Ohri Gandhi

Abstract

A number of state Medicaid programs have recently proposed or implemented new or increased copayments for nonemergent emergency department (ED) visits. Evidence suggests that copayments generally reduce the level of healthcare utilization, although there is little specific evidence regarding the effectiveness of copayments in reducing nonurgent ED use among Medicaid enrollees or other low‐income populations. Encouraging efficient and appropriate use of healthcare services will be of particular importance for Medicaid programs as they expand under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. This analysis uses national data from 2001 to 2009 to examine the effect of copayments on nonurgent ED utilization among nonelderly adult enrollees. We find that visits among Medicaid enrollees in state‐years where a copayment is in place are significantly less likely to be for nonurgent reasons. Our findings suggest that copayments may be an effective tool for reducing use of the ED for nonurgent care. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Suggested Citation

  • Lindsay M. Sabik & Sabina Ohri Gandhi, 2016. "Copayments and Emergency Department Use Among Adult Medicaid Enrollees," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 25(5), pages 529-542, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:hlthec:v:25:y:2016:i:5:p:529-542
    DOI: 10.1002/hec.3164
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/hec.3164
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/hec.3164?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Dague, Laura, 2014. "The effect of Medicaid premiums on enrollment: A regression discontinuity approach," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 1-12.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Cathy J. Bradley & David Neumark & Lauryn Saxe Walker, 2017. "The Effect of Primary Care Visits on Health Care Utilization: Findings from a Randomized Controlled Trial," NBER Working Papers 24100, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Berger, Michael & Six, Eva & Czypionka, Thomas, 2024. "Policy implications of heterogeneous demand reactions to changes in cost-sharing: patient-level evidence from Austria," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 121162, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    3. Berger, Michael & Six, Eva & Czypionka, Thomas, 2024. "Policy implications of heterogeneous demand reactions to changes in cost-sharing: Patient-level evidence from Austria," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 340(C).
    4. Simona Gamba & Niklas Jakobsson & Mikael Svensson, 2022. "The impact of cost-sharing on prescription drug demand: evidence from a double-difference regression kink design," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 23(9), pages 1591-1599, December.
    5. Jakobsson, Niklas & Svensson, Mikael, 2016. "Copayments and physicians visits: A panel data study of Swedish regions 2003–2012," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 120(9), pages 1095-1099.
    6. Bradley, Cathy J. & Neumark, David & Walker, Lauryn Saxe, 2018. "The effect of primary care visits on other health care utilization: A randomized controlled trial of cash incentives offered to low income, uninsured adults in Virginia," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 121-133.
    7. Chen, Wen-Yi, 2020. "The welfare effect of co-payment adjustments on emergency department visits in medical centers: Evidence from Taiwan," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 124(11), pages 1192-1199.
    8. Wang, Tianyu & Wen, Ke & Gao, Qiuming & Sun, Ruochen, 2023. "Small money, big change: The distributional impact of differentiated doctor's visit fee on healthcare utilization," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 339(C).
    9. Ziad R. Ghandour, 2019. "Public-Private Competition in Regulated Markets," NIPE Working Papers 02/2019, NIPE - Universidade do Minho.
    10. Lippi Bruni, Matteo & Mammi, Irene & Ugolini, Cristina, 2016. "Does the extension of primary care practice opening hours reduce the use of emergency services?," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 144-155.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Hsing-Wen Han & Hsien-Ming Lien & Tzu-Ting Yang, 2020. "Patient Cost-Sharing and Healthcare Utilization in Early Childhood: Evidence from a Regression Discontinuity Design," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 12(3), pages 238-278, August.
    2. James Marton & Angela Snyder & Mei Zhou, 2016. "Enhanced Citizenship Verification And Children'S Medicaid Coverage," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 54(3), pages 1670-1683, July.
    3. Timothy Layton & Alice K. Ndikumana & Mark Shepard, 2017. "Health Plan Payment in Medicaid Managed Care: A Hybrid Model of Regulated Competition," NBER Working Papers 23518, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Thomas Buchmueller & John C. Ham & Lara D. Shore-Sheppard, 2015. "The Medicaid Program," NBER Chapters, in: Economics of Means-Tested Transfer Programs in the United States, Volume 1, pages 21-136, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Amy Finkelstein & Nathaniel Hendren & Mark Shepard, 2017. "Subsidizing Health Insurance for Low-Income Adults: Evidence from Massachusetts," NBER Working Papers 23668, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Julie Shi, 2016. "Income Responses to Health Insurance Subsidies: Evidence from Massachusetts," American Journal of Health Economics, MIT Press, vol. 2(1), pages 96-124, January.
    7. Olukorede Abiona & Phil Haywood & Serena Yu & Jane Hall & Denzil G. Fiebig & Kees van Gool, 2024. "Physician responses to insurance benefit restrictions: The case of ophthalmology," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 33(5), pages 911-928, May.
    8. Keith Marzilli Ericson & Timothy J. Layton & Adrianna McIntyre & Adam Sacarny, 2023. "Reducing Administrative Barriers Increases Take-up of Subsidized Health Insurance Coverage: Evidence from a Field Experiment," NBER Working Papers 30885, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Zhang, Qi & Chen, Chun & Xue, Hong & Park, Kayoung & Wang, Youfa, 2021. "Revisiting the relationship between WIC participation and breastfeeding among low-income children in the U.S. after the 2009 WIC food package revision," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 101(C).
    10. Kara Contreary & Katharine Bradley & Matthew Niedzwiecki & Kristin Maurer & Sandra Chao & Brenda Natzke & Maggie Samra, "undated". "Section 1115 Alternative Medicaid Expansions: Summative Evaluation Report," Mathematica Policy Research Reports 042b5fe43da44afea9538552b, Mathematica Policy Research.
    11. Nathaniel Hendren, 2021. "Measuring Ex Ante Welfare in Insurance Markets [Some Aspects of Optimal Unemployment Insurance]," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 88(3), pages 1193-1223.
    12. Sophie Guthmuller & Jérôme Wittwer, 2017. "The Impact of the Eligibility Threshold of a French Means‐Tested Health Insurance Programme on Doctor Visits: A Regression Discontinuity Analysis," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(12), pages 17-34, December.
    13. Drake, Coleman & Anderson, David & Cai, Sih-Ting & Sacks, Daniel W., 2023. "Financial transaction costs reduce benefit take-up evidence from zero-premium health insurance plans in Colorado," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(C).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:hlthec:v:25:y:2016:i:5:p:529-542. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/jhome/5749 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.