Dive Brief:
- While some states that expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act are reporting lowered uncompensated care costs in their hospitals, Connecticut is not seeing similar results. Through the first half of the year, after major provisions of the ACA went into effect, uncompensated care was up just slightly from 2013 figures: to 2.4% in 2014 from 2.34%.
- The numbers, provided by the Connecticut Hospital Association, are different than those projected last week by the US Department of Health and Human Services. HHS has estimated that uncompensated care would decrease by $5.7 billion, or 16%, in 2014. The agency expects most of this reduction will take place in states that expanded Medicaid under the ACA (like Connecticut).
- One way to account for the discrepancy is that HHS and CHA used different figures. The HHS report tallied total uncompensated care and the association's report looked at charges as a percent of patient revenue. Also, the state, which began expanding Medicaid in 2010, had the fourth-lowest uninsured rate in 2012 at 9.5%, according to a Gallup poll. The uninsured also represented only 2% of hospital patients in the state.
Dive Insight:
It makes sense that states that already had low uninsured rates and high Medicaid coverage would see less of a movement on the dial than others that started at a different place. According to a report released by Connecticut’s Office of Health Care Access, the organization does expect uncompensated care costs to decrease eventually. The reductions may take some time and the office said it may happen at different rates at various hospitals. Hospitals that are located in areas where there is a high uninsured rate may take longer to see a change than other areas.