Sunday, March 23, 2014

Medicaid expansion may help prevent kidney failure

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2014-03/ason-mem031414.php

PUBLIC RELEASE DATE: 20-Mar-2014

Contact: Tracy Hampton
American Society of Nephrology

Medicaid expansion may help prevent kidney failure, improve access to kidney-related care

Study's findings underscore the key role Medicaid plays in delivering chronic disease care

Washington, DC (March 20, 2014) — States with broader Medicaid coverage have lower incidences of kidney failure and smaller insurance-related gaps in access to kidney disease care. Those are the findings of a study appearing in an upcoming issue of the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology (JASN). The results point to the potential benefits of Medicaid expansion on chronic disease prevention and care.

Chronic disease care is a major source of rising health care expenditures, and access to care for uninsured individuals with a chronic disease has eroded over the last decade. The Affordable Care Act is expanding Medicaid coverage of low-income adults, though not all states are participating in this expansion. Most previous studies of Medicaid coverage have focused on primary care or emergency room services and have not carefully examined Medicaid's effects on chronic disease care.

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Among the major findings:

• Broader Medicaid coverage among low-income nonelderly adults was associated with a lower incidence of ESRD: for each additional 10% of the low-income nonelderly population covered by Medicaid, there was a 1.8% decrease in ESRD incidence.

• Low-income nonelderly adults with ESRD who were on Medicaid had better access to care in states with broader Medicaid coverage: For a 50-year-old white woman, the access gap to being put on the kidney transplant waiting list between Medicaid and private insurance decreased by 7.7 percentage points in high vs low Medicaid coverage states. Similarly, the access gap to transplantation decreased by 4.0 percentage points and the access gap to peritoneal dialysis decreased by 3.8 percentage points.

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