Dive Brief:
- Some hospitals, both public safety net and private facilities, are starting to see a steady decline in uninsured visits in the 25 states where Medicaid expansion began in January 2014 under the Affordable Care Act.
- Moreover, certain hospitals are experiencing a drop in emergency-room visits by uninsured patients, and a corresponding boost in visits to their primary-care clinics by the newly insured, most of whom are now enrolled in Medicaid.
- In some cases, the numbers are striking: Harborview Medical Center, Seattle's largest safety net hospital, said it expects to boost its revenue by $20 million this year — double its initial projection — due to a drop in uninsured patients from 12% in 2013 to 2% this spring.
Dive Insight:
Not every hospital can expect to make up Medicare and Medicaid funding shortfalls by attracting more newly insured Americans in 2014, and many hospitals assert that reform hasn't reduced charity care as much as anticipated. But the odds of improving hospitals' budgetary challenges seem favorable in Medicaid-expansion states. While it will have a positive impact, the full extent to which an influx of people with new health coverage will reduce hospitals' bad debt remains up in the air.