ArticlePloS one2020
Insurance instability and use of emergency and office-based care after gaining coverage: An observational cohort study.
Article in PloS one, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
3 citing papers in PubMed.
- Duration of health insurance coverage gaps and subsequent cost-related barriers to care among adults aged 18-64 years with multimorbidity.Frontiers in public health · 2026Article
- Impact of Insurance Instability and Racial/Ethnic Disparities in Hospitalizations for Patients with Asthma.Annals of the American Thoracic Society · 2022Article
- Comparing health care use and costs among new Medicaid enrollees before and during the COVID-19 pandemic.BMC health services research · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundThe Affordable Care Act led to improvements in reporting a usual source of care, but it is unclear whether patients are changing their usual source of care in response to coverage gains. We assess whether prior insurance instability is associated with changes in use of emergency and office-based care after the Marketplace and Medicaid expansion were introduced.
methodsOur study draws from the 2013-14 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey, identifying a cohort of non-elderly adults with full-year health insurance coverage in 2014. We use linear and multinomial logistic regression to assess the relationship between insurance instability prior to 2014 (uninsured for 1-11 months, ≥12 months) and person-level changes in use of health care after gaining coverage (change in ED and office visits from 2013 to 2014) with continuously insured individuals serving as a comparison group.
resultsBeing uninsured for at least one year prior to gaining full-year coverage in 2014 was associated with a 33% increase in ED visits (0.06 visits, p<0.01) and a 47% increase in office visits (1.10 visits, p<0.01), driven by those gaining public coverage. We found no evidence of substitution across settings in the short term, often a stated goal of expansion.
conclusionThe long-term uninsured may have substantial health needs and pent-up demand for health care, seeing more physicians across multiple settings in the year after gaining coverage as they seek to get unmanaged conditions under control. Closing the gap in primary care use between the previously uninsured and those with health insurance coverage may help improve long-term health outcomes.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.