Late entry into prenatal care: the neighborhood context.

This study investigated individual and neighborhood factors associated with late entry into prenatal care. Data from 220,694 New York City birth certificates were linked with data from the 1990 census and other secondary sources to determine the effect of women's individual characteristics and their neighborhood context on timing of prenatal care entry. Results indicate that 15 percent of New York City's pregnant women entered prenatal care late and that residence in a distressed urban neighborhood significantly increased the risk of late initiation, even in a model controlling for individual risk factors. Implications for social workers include the importance of outreach and case management for pregnant women, the value of health and social policies targeting distressed urban neighborhoods, and the need to ensure that Medicaid managed care implementation fosters use of prenatal care. The findings also underscore the importance of continuing to strive for a policy that ensures lifelong universal access to health care.

Prenatal care utilization in New York City: comparison of measures and assessment of their significance for urban health.

This paper considers policy and programmatic consequences of shifting measurement of prenatal care utilization from the Kessner Index (KI) to the Adequacy of Prenatal Care Utilization Index (APNCUI). In gauging the adequacy of prenatal care utilization, the KI considers the timing of prenatal care initiation and the number of prenatal visits. The APNCUI also considers both timing of initiation and number of visits, but the approach taken to conceptualizing and measuring these two aspects of prenatal care utilization is more refined. We used birth certificates to calculate the KI and the APNGUI for 217,183 New York City (NYC) births in 1991-1992. We used cross-tabulations and bivariate odds ratios to compare the classifications resulting from the respective indexes. The APNCUI detected some important dimensions of the problem of inadequate prenatal care use that are not evident when using the KI. The proportion of births with inadequate use increases from 18% with the KI to 35% with the APNGUI. Groups of women at elevated risk for inadequate use are the same, but the KI understates significantly the risk for Hispanic women, teens, women who are less well educated, and those on WIC and Medicaid. The APNGUI yields a fuller picture of the degree to which some urban women are at risk for inadequate prenatal care use. Use of the APNGUI in quality assurance, monitoring, and research is recommended.

Medicaid participation among urban primary care physicians.

OBJECTIVES: This article describes Medicaid participation among office-based primary care physicians in cities and examines its determinants. METHODS: Data used in this study were collected through the 1993 and 1994 American Medical Association Socioeconomic Monitoring System telephone surveys. The sample includes 1,300 primary care physicians. Our multivariate model includes a variety of personal, practice, community, and policy factors thought to influence participation. Logistic regression was used to examine determinants of accepting any Medicaid patients and ordinary least square regression was used to examine determinants of the extent of participation among participants. RESULTS: The authors found that 19% of respondents did not participate in Medicaid and 62% had practices with 9% or fewer Medicaid patients. Multivariate analyses indicated that Medicaid payment levels were not associated with observed patterns of Medicaid participation. Community sociodemographic characteristics and demand from Medicaid-eligibles, by contrast, play a significant role in influencing observed levels of participation. CONCLUSIONS: Strategies other than raising Medicaid payment levels will be needed to achieve equitable access to office-based primary care for the poor residing in cities.

Medicaid managed care and urban poor people: implications for social work.

Many state Medicaid programs are implementing managed care, and more can be expected to do so in the future. Medicaid managed care will have an important impact on Medicaid recipients and uninsured people who live in cities. It will also pose significant new challenges for hospitals, community health centers, and clinics serving these populations and for social workers practicing in these settings. Social workers need to understand the reasons for Medicaid managed care's development and phenomenal growth and its likely impact or clients, service delivery, and access to care in medically underserved urban neighborhoods. This article identifies roles for social workers in supporting clients in the transition to Medicaid managed care and advocating for policies that will improve access to care for disadvantaged urban populations.

Which physicians limit their Medicaid participation, and why.

OBJECTIVE: This study identifies factors differentiating Medicaid participating physicians who accept all Medicaid patients from those limiting their Medicaid participation. DATA SOURCES: Data come from periodic telephone surveys of random samples of physicians conducted by the American Medical Association (AMA). STUDY DESIGN: Surveys conducted in 1990-1993 were pooled to form a sample of 4,188 Medicaid-participating office-based physicians. Respondents were classified as accepting all Medicaid patients or as limiting their Medicaid participation. Descriptive statistics are used to examine differences between these groups with respect to selected personal, practice, community, and reimbursement variables. Logistic regression analysis is used to identify factors associated with physicians accepting all Medicaid patients or limiting their Medicaid participation in some way. DATA COLLECTION METHODS: Survey data were supplemented with 1990 census data, 1990 AMA Physician Masterfile data, and 1989 data on physician payment levels. PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Less than half of Medicaid-participating physicians and only about one-third of participating primary care physicians accept all Medicaid patients. Higher Medicaid fees are associated with physicians participating fully, but the marginal effects of changes in fees on the probability of physicians participating fully is small. CONCLUSIONS: Increases in Medicaid reimbursement aimed at primary care physicians or those in underserved areas may convert limited participants into full participants and, in so doing, improve the access of Medicaid eligibles to care. The increases in payment level needed to increase the proportion of physicians participating fully would be substantial, however, and may not be politically feasible.

Primary care arrangements and access to care among African-American women in three Chicago communities.

African-American women of child-bearing age residing in three high-risk communities in Chicago were surveyed regarding their primary care arrangements and access to care (n = 552). This study examined factors which differentiated women who used office-based practices from those who used institutional settings (community clinics, health department clinics, hospital-based clinics) for primary care. Results of multivariate analysis indicate that women who used office-based practices were more likely than those who used institutional settings to see the same provider, to walk to their provider, to have less travel time and to walk in without an appointment. They were less likely to be hospitalized in the past year and less likely to report the availability of family planning at their usual source of care. Satisfaction with care, insurance status and sociodemographic characteristics were not associated with use of a particular facility type. Implications for organizing comprehensive health services for this population are discussed.

Medicaid and access to child health care in Chicago.

In this article we examine how increasing the reimbursement of physicians and expanding Medicaid eligibility affect access to care for children in Cook County, Illinois, which overlies Chicago. Using Medicaid claims and other data at the zip-code level, we compare the places where Medicaid children live with the places where all the physicians who treat children and those who accept Medicaid patients have their practices. Our findings suggest that the recent changes in legislation are unlikely to benefit extremely poor children, who are more likely to live in depressed inner-city areas, where there are few physicians. "Near-poor" children whose homes are dispersed throughout the county, who are now eligible for Medicaid as a result of the recent changes, are likely to see improvements in their access to care. Further changes in policy, aimed at enhancing the capacity of institutions providing care, could improve access for the children of the inner city.

The role of perceived barriers in the use of a comprehensive prenatal care program.

This study focused on the use of community-based networks for prenatal care by black women in three high-risk communities in Chicago. We examined factors associated with use of network affiliated medical providers among 177 women. Sociodemographic factors and health status measures had no effect on network affiliated provider use. However, perceived barriers to care differentiated those who used affiliated providers from those who used alternative sources for care. Out of ten possible barriers, the odds ratios for job demands, travel time to providers and child care were significantly different from one. Implications for program modifications and expansion are discussed.

Medicaid patients' access to office-based obstetricians.

Recent expansion of the eligibility of low-income pregnant women for Medicaid-funded prenatal care may be jeopardized by undersupplies of obstetricians and gynecologists (OB/GYNs) in rural and urban low-income areas and by widely reported declines in the number of OB/GYNs willing to accept Medicaid patients. This paper examines the availability of office-based obstetric care to Medicaid patients in Illinois. We present and test a model of the determinants of Medicaid participation by private, office-based OB/GYNs that highlights the role of residential segregation and practice economics. We find that a large growth in demand for obstetrical care or the enhancement of Medicaid fees is unlikely to have a major effect on OB/GYN participation in Medicaid. We conclude that improving access will require expanding the supply of providers in underserved areas.

Medicaid in the inner city: the case of maternity care in Chicago.

The growing concentration of lower-income groups, including Medicaid patients, in homogeneous inner-city areas such as Chicago casts considerable doubt on the effectiveness of expanding Medicaid eligibility and raising physician reimbursement to improve access to maternity care. There are few private office-based physicians providing prenatal care in these areas, and most pregnant women and infants are treated by private-office-based physicians in very high-volume practices, prompting concern about the quality of care. Increasing the supply of providers is required to enhance access to maternity services in inner cities. Expanding eligibility and raising reimbursement rates are more apt to benefit "near-poor" women, who are more spatially dispersed, than clustered-poor female populations.

Physicians' decisions to limit Medicaid participation: determinants and policy implications.

Although most primary care physicians participate in state Medicaid programs, they may accept all Medicaid patients, or they may choose to limit their participation. This decision allows physicians to adjust their Medicaid caseloads to a desired level, and it has important implications for the access of low-income patients to health care. Surveys of pediatricians in 1978 and 1983 indicate that the proportion of pediatricians limiting their Medicaid participation increased significantly from 26 percent to 35 percent (p less than .001). In addition, in both 1978 and 1983, limited participants saw significantly fewer Medicaid patients than full participants. This paper describes a number of strategies available to federal and state policymakers for fostering full Medicaid participation. Multivariate analyses indicate that increasing reimbursement levels is an important strategy for encouraging full Medicaid participation. In addition, full participants will increase their Medicaid caseloads in response to a variety of Medicaid policy incentives, while limited participants are found to respond to fewer policy incentives. The authors conclude that caution will be needed to ensure that health care cost-containment strategies such as capitation or selective contracting do not inadvertently discourage participation among both full and limited Medicaid participants.

Pediatrician participation in Medicaid--findings of a five-year-follow-up study in California and elsewhere.

Medi-Cal-California's Medicaid program-underwent significant changes during the period 1978 through 1983. Most notable were the imposition of new copayments, reductions in physician reimbursement and selective contracting for hospital services. The state-funded medically indigent program was transferred to the counties and the state began to experiment with bulk purchasing of drugs and supplies, a lock-in for overutilizers and primary care case management. How have these changes affected primary care providers' participation in Medi-Cal? Surveys of California pediatricians in 1978 and 1983 suggest that while most continue to participate, the level of limited participation in Medi-Cal increased from 23% to 51%. Most pediatricians express discontent with the level of Medicaid payments and there is a growing sentiment that Medicaid regulations interfere with the provision of high quality medical care. Future Medi-Cal policy developments, such as contracting for physician services, should be structured in ways that maximize participation of primary care providers in the program.

Recent trends in pediatrician participation in Medicaid.

Many Medicaid policy changes occurred in recent years including those resulting from the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1981 and the Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1982. At the same time, the supply of providers increased and the health care market became more competitive. This paper presents evidence about how these developments are affecting pediatricians' participation in state Medicaid programs. Surveys conducted in 1978 (N = 814) and 1983 (N = 791) indicate that the proportion participating declined only slightly from 85.1% to 82.0%. The average Medicaid case load of participants remained at 15%, although extent of participation of individual pediatricians fluctuated. Previous research demonstrates that physicians' Medicaid participation is affected by reimbursement level, administrative complexity, and generosity of eligibility and benefits. Our data confirm these influences. However, the longitudinal design of the analyses reported here also captures shifts in the relative influence of these factors. The influence of policy factors has diminished over time, while the influence of changes in physician supply has increased. Increased physician supply, however, is associated with decreased Medicaid participation. Thus, diminished access to pediatric care for low-income children may result from recent changes in Medicaid and in the broader health care environment.

The extent of physician participation in Medicaid: a comparison of physician estimates and aggregated patient records.

This article compares two measures of the extent of physician participation in Medicaid programs. The first, which has been used in most research to date on the subject, is based on physician estimates of the proportion of their patients who are Medicaid patients. The second derives from encounter forms for a sample of visits to the interviewed physicians. The comparison shows that physicians in the sample tended to overestimate by 40 percent the extent of their Medicaid participation. Because the two measures are highly correlated, the analysis of the determinants of Medicaid participation was not affected by the measure used. However, since physicians tended to overstate the proportion of Medicaid patients in their practices, interview data should not be used to measure the amount of physician participation or to calculate elasticities for the effects of policy changes on the extent of participation.

Full and limited medicaid participation among pediatricians.

Participation in Medicaid by pediatricians is an important element in the access of low income children to health care. Factors that influence whether participating pediatricians choose to participate fully in the program or to limit their acceptance of Medicaid patients are identified and analyzed. Data were derived from interviews conducted with 814 pediatricians in 13 states. A multivariate analysis examining physician, practice, service area, and Medicaid policy characteristics indicates that policy factors are most influential in the physician's decision whether to participate fully in medicaid programs. Factors found to foster the willingness of pediatricians to participate fully in state Medicaid programs included more competitive levels of reimbursement, minimal delays in reimbursement, and eligibility and benefit policies that minimize interference with the exercise of medical judgment.