Dive Brief:
- A new study appearing in journal Health Affairs suggests that the extension of health insurance eligibility to young adults age 19 to 25 may have affected how these young adults use the emergency department and other health services.
- The study, which examined young adult ED use between 2009 and 2011 in California, Florida and New York, found that following the implementation of the ACA provision extending coverage, the younger group had a decrease of 2.7 ED visits per 1000 people compared to the older group, a relative change of -2.1%.
- The relative decrease in ED use nets out to a total reduction of more than 60,000 visits from young adults across the states in 2011.
Dive Insight:
Though the expansion of ACA coverage to young adults seems to have cut their use of the ED, other forces seem to be increasing ED use. According to a study conducted by the Colorado Hospital Association, overall emergency department visits are on the rise in states that expanded Medicaid.
The CHA study found that the average number of emergency visits to hospitals in expansion states shot up 5.6% for the second quarter of 2014 compared with the second quarter of 2013, a larger change than expected from the variation of the past two years. (Interestingly, hospitals in states that have not expanded Medicaid reported a 1.8% increase during the same period.)
Still, the Health Affairs study concluded that among the young adult population, the change in the number of visits was driven by fewer visits among users, not a growth in people who visited the ED. This is an intriguing point which leads to questions as to whether ACA coverage has simply made younger adults more healthy.