Study shows worse health, higher costs for Medicaid patients

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Surgery patients covered by Medicaid come into their operations with worse health, do worse afterward, stay in the hospital longer and find themselves back in the hospital more often than those covered by private insurance, a new analysis by Medical School researchers finds.

In fact, people with Medicaid coverage were twice as likely as other patients to have certain health risk factors before they had surgery, the researchers report in JAMA Surgery. They also had many more emergency operations, experienced two-thirds more complications after surgery, and used 50 percent more hospital resources than patients with other kinds of insurance.

The results come from an analysis of data from patients who had surgery over a one-year period in 52 Michigan hospitals taking part in the Michigan Surgical Quality Collaborative.

The findings may help foretell the near future, as millions of uninsured people become eligible to enroll in Medicaid programs that 26 U.S. states have expanded under the Affordable Care Act. Past studies suggest that many of the newly covered may use their new coverage to get treated for conditions that went untreated while they were uninsured — including having surgery.

Since hospitals often don’t recoup the total cost of caring for people covered by Medicaid, the findings also have implications for how hospitals will fare financially in coming years.

The authors say their results carry special importance for hospitals that treat large numbers of Medicaid patients — and currently receive additional payments from the federal government to help cover more of the cost of their care. Those payments are scheduled to decline over time under the ACA.

The study-analyzed data from a random sampling of all operations performed at the participating hospitals in one year, focusing on nearly 14,000 patients between the ages of 18 and 64 who had either private insurance or Medicaid. Patients who also had Medicare coverage, or who had no insurance, weren’t included.

“If we make the presumption that the new Medicaid-covered patients will fit the mold of what we see now, surgical and inpatient teams must be prepared to provide the care and support they need,” says Dr. Seth Waits, a U-M surgical resident who led the analysis. “Financially, it may be a double whammy for hospitals, especially those that have the highest percentage of their surgical population covered by Medicaid.”

The authors were surprised by the wide variation between hospitals in the proportion of their surgical cases that were Medicaid-covered patients. More than 61 percent of all operations on people with Medicaid coverage were done at just 20 of the 52 hospitals.

Although the Medicaid patients were on average younger, they were twice as likely to smoke, and had higher rates of conditions that can arise from years of poor health habits and make surgery riskier, including diabetes, lung disease and blockages in their blood vessels.

In the first month after their operations, they had higher rates of complications, and were more than twice as likely to die, than those with private insurance. They needed an average of one more night in the hospital, and were more likely to need to return to the hospital after going home from surgery.

MSQC: Aiming to make surgery better and safer

Waits conducted the study with Dr. Darrell Campbell Jr., who directs the MSQC and is the U-M Health System’s chief medical officer, and Dr. Michael Englesbe, the MSQC’s associate director.

For nearly a decade, the MSQC has used funding from Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan to bring together surgical teams from hospitals across Michigan to collect, pool and analyze a wide range of information about surgical care.

The effort has allowed the hospitals to spot opportunities to improve care, and yielded important research findings that could help make surgical care across the U.S. better and safer. More hospitals have joined MSQC in recent years, and it now includes most major hospitals around the state.

In 2012, the collaborative added insurance status to the list of items it tracks, and the new study uses data collected between July 2012 and June 2013. In April 2014, Michigan’s Medicaid system expanded with the addition of the Healthy Michigan Plan for any adult making up to 133 percent of the poverty level.

“As we enter a new era under expanded Medicaid, we’ll continue to use MSQC methods to track how the newly covered are doing, and what we can do to prevent unnecessary complications, readmissions to hospitals and other issue,” says Campbell. “We can already see that surgical teams must partner with non-surgical teams to ensure patients get the full range of care and support they need both before and after an operation.”

In addition to Waits, Campbell and Englesbe, the research team included surgical resident Dr. Bradley Reames and medical student Kyle Sheetz.

Campbell and Englesbe are a professor and associate professor, respectively, in the Medical School’s Department of Surgery. Both are members of the U-M Institute for Healthcare Policy & Innovation.  

Comments

  1. Janet VanValkenburg
    on May 13, 2014 at 9:58 am

    I find it interesting that no one has seen the obvious – the Medicaid patients having surgery now are coming to surgery from not having any financial assistance to have the surgery before the ACA and expanded Medicaid. In the past these same people had little or no medical care because they had no insurance and little money – they waited for any care at all until they came into the hospital through Emergency – and who paid for that? Taxpayers! With ACA more people will have the health care they need earlier and the situation you describe will correct . Or would you prefer to leave all the uninsured people in the US uninsured, unhealthy, untreated…… ultimately suffering and dying early —— to “save” money?

    • John Doe
      on May 13, 2014 at 2:16 pm

      “I find it interesting that no one has seen the obvious – the Medicaid patients having surgery now are coming to surgery from not having any financial assistance to have the surgery before the ACA and expanded Medicaid. In the past these same people had little or no medical care because they had no insurance and little money – they waited for any care at all until they came into the hospital through Emergency – and who paid for that? Taxpayers! With ACA more people will have the health care they need earlier and the situation you describe will correct . Or would you prefer to leave all the uninsured people in the US uninsured, unhealthy, untreated…… ultimately suffering and dying early —— to “save” money?”

      ACA and expanded Medicaid are still being funded by taxpayer dollars for low income patients.

    • Mike Dolphin
      on May 17, 2014 at 5:07 pm

      “Or would you prefer to leave all the uninsured people in the US uninsured, unhealthy, untreated…… ultimately suffering and dying early —— to “save” money?”

      Well…kinda, yes.

  2. Old MD
    on May 16, 2014 at 8:53 pm

    You do not need any money or any health care to have a normal weight, not smoke, don’t drink more than 1-2 drinks per day, take no illegal drugs and exercise 30 minutes daily. Most people who do these things are in good health. Besides, there is no evidence that beyond standard immunizations and some routine cancer screening studies that seeing an MD on a regular basis does you any good.

    Good health is achievable by most with a modest effort and requires no government money or programs!

    • Mike Dolphin
      on May 17, 2014 at 5:14 pm

      “You do not need any money or any health care to have a normal weight, not smoke, don’t drink more than 1-2 drinks per day, take no illegal drugs and exercise 30 minutes daily.”

      Exactly…and folks on Medicaid tend not to make these lifestyle choices. So what is the argument for society in general (and for some, “the rich” in particular) to assume the financial burden for other folks imprudent choices?

      • Arlene Zsilka
        on February 4, 2015 at 7:34 pm

        I am about to go on Medicaid. I don’t smoke, drink or do drugs, worked for 35 years, but am unable to work now. I am not eligible for affordable care assistance because my income is too low. Food bank food is often sausages and snack food, so I buy vegetables on clearance, which may not be as fresh and nutritious. I would think that if this happened to you, you would welcome any assistance your country could offer.

  3. Old MD
    on May 16, 2014 at 8:53 pm

    You do not need any money or any health care to have a normal weight, not smoke, don’t drink more than 1-2 drinks per day, take no illegal drugs and exercise 30 minutes daily. Most people who do these things are in good health. Besides, there is no evidence that beyond standard immunizations and some routine cancer screening studies that seeing an MD on a regular basis does you any good.

    Good health is achievable by most with a modest effort and requires no government money or programs!

  4. Rob Blank
    on June 23, 2014 at 11:06 am

    We should take into account that the new Medicaid population will likely be in better overall health than the current one. Comprehensive coverage was geared more towards adults with disabilities and/or other serious health problems. Also keep in mind that on the lifestyle choices front we are talking about a population that has not had equal access to primary care or health education. It’s obvious to us that avoiding tobacco and drugs, exercising, and having a proper diet is important because we work in healthcare and see the consequences of poor habits every day.

    The financial side of this definitely concerns me. UM’s charity care burden will be reduced, but I have no idea if it will be enough to balance the cost of treating even more patients at Medicaid’s low reimbursement rates. Smaller hospitals in particular could struggle to remain financially viable (not that many of them were sound to begin with in that area). Maybe we should join McLaren in their binge on community hospitals throughout Michigan.

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