Listen LIVE button

WBUREmergency Room Use Still High Despite Mass. Health Reforms

Published September 24, 2009  Updated September 25

BOSTON — A new report (PDF) finds that even though most Massachusetts residents now have health insurance, the state still has very high rates of emergency room visits.

Many health reform advocates in Massachusetts had thought that achieving near-universal health coverage would reduce emergency department use statewide. But that hasn’t been the case.

The new study, by the non-profit Urban Institute in Washington, D.C., shows that just having insurance doesn’t stop people from going to the emergency room — sometimes simply for routine, non-emergency care.

The likely reason for that: Even people with coverage don’t always have convenient access to health care, according to Anya Rader Wallack, interim president of the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts Foundation, which helped fund the report along with the Commonwealth Fund and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

“People having a stronger connection with a primary care doctor, people being able to get same-day appointments, and people being able to get after-hours care would potentially make a big difference,” Wallack said.

Unless access to health care improves, Wallack added, many people will continue to treat emergency rooms as a substitute for a primary care doctor.

The report also found that Massachusetts residents who are frequent users of emergency rooms, meaning that they visited an emergency room more than three times in the past 12 months, have the following characteristics:

  • They are sicker and more disabled than the general population
  • They tend to be low-income or have a low level of education
  • They are heavily concentrated in Boston and the southeast region of the state
  • They account for nearly a quarter of annual emergency room visits statewide
Your Comments
  • [...] emergency room visits in Massachusetts dropped now that we have near universal coverage? WBUR’s Sacha Pfeiffer reports that even people with health insurance still rely on the ER because they may not have easy access [...]

    Posted by ER Visits Still High in State Despite Reforms | CommonHealth on October 22, 2009, at 9:15 PM
  • [...] Insurance doesn’t equal access. Another study out about the Massachusetts “insurance for all” program shows that “unless access to health care improves, many people will continue to treat emergency rooms as a substitute for a primary care doctor” and that “access problems in the community may play a significant role in ED use in Massachusetts.” Sounds like a plan. Let’s replicate this on a national level. Just what we need as more emergency departments close nationwide. Cue grandpa talking to grandson … “Yeah, sonny, I remember back when we only had to wait 9 hours to see a doctor in the emergency department.” [...]

    Posted by Healthcare Update 10-17-2009 | WhiteCoat's Call Room on October 17, 2009, at 11:05 AM
  • I’ve had positive experiences using the after hours urgent care at my medical group. All I had to do was call and they would give me an appointment time to come in with minimal waiting time…even on the weekend.

    It would be really great if there were more after hour urgent care clinics available on-site, near ER’s to divert non-life threatning cases.

    Posted by rw on September 24, 2009, at 11:04 PM
  • While I agree that urgent care clinics should be utilized when possible, the fact is that many of these clinics are located in hospitals, and they often bill insurance carriers at the ER rate.

    Posted by HV on September 24, 2009, at 10:54 AM
  • Why don’t they use urgent care clinics? That’s exactly why they exist. The wait in Urgent Care Clinics is usually minutes, not hours. They treat patients like humans. They’re not that expensive even if you don’t have coverage. I’m not in the healthcare field, and this isn’t urgent care promotion – it’s a question that policy-makers should have an answer for.

    Posted by bill on September 24, 2009, at 8:43 AM
Have something to say?
Please stay on topic, be civil, and be brief. These comments are moderated by WBUR, but you are solely responsible for the content of your comments. By commenting, you agree to our Community Discussion Rules.

WBUR Topics
Most Popular
Tweets About @WBUR Twitter
This site is best viewed with: Firefox 3.5 | Explorer 8 | Chrome 2 | Safari 4