Patient navigation (PN) increases screening colonoscopy completion in minority and uninsured populations. However, colonoscopy quality is under-reported in the setting of PN and quality indicators have often failed to meet benchmark standards. This study investigated screening colonoscopy quality indicators after year-one of a PN initiative targeting the medically uninsured. This was a retrospe...

OBJECTIVES To use the administrative capacity of a health maintenance organization to enroll uninsured patients at an academic health center into a coordinated care program in which patients were assigned to community primary care physicians over 3 years. STUDY DESIGN Observational case study of a cohort of 2389 patients enrolled for at least 1 year and cross-sectional observations for all en...

In 1995, Taiwan implemented a national health insurance program (NHI) to provide equitable, affordable, and universal health care coverage to all its citizens. Prior to this, 43% of the population was uninsured and 57% was covered by one of three major insurance programs. In this study, we examine the effect of NHI on the utilization of medical services (physician visits and medication use) for...

INTRODUCTION As millions of uninsured citizens who use emergency department (ED) services are now eligible for health insurance under the Affordable Care Act, the ED is ideally situated to facilitate linkage to insurance. Forty percent of U.S. EDs report having an insurance linkage program. This is the first national study to examine the characteristics of EDs that offer or do not offer these p...

Young adults between the ages of 19 and 29 represent one of the largest segments of the uninsured; approximately 13.7 million were uninsured in 2008. The problem is linked to critical transition points in young adults' lives: aging off parents' coverage when they graduate from either high school or college, and losing eligibility for public programs like Medicaid and the Children's Health Insur...

While U.S. health care reform will most likely reduce the overall number of uninsured Mexican-Americans, it does not address challenges related to health care coverage for undocumented Mexican immigrants, who will remain uninsured under the measures of the reform; documented low-income Mexican immigrants who have not met the five-year waiting period required for Medicaid benefits; or the growin...

More than 43 million Americans reported being uninsured throughout 2002 and millions more lack coverage for shorter periods. The lack of insurance negatively affects not only the uninsured, but their families, the communities in which they live, and the country as a whole. Insuring America’s Health: Principles and Recommendations concludes the series of reports on the consequences of uninsuranc...

OBJECTIVES A 1993 study found a 25% higher risk of death among uninsured compared with privately insured adults. We analyzed the relationship between uninsurance and death with more recent data. METHODS We conducted a survival analysis with data from the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. We analyzed participants aged 17 to 64 years to determine whether uninsurance at the...

The characteristics of an individual, the local labor market, and the firm where an individual is employed each may be associated with racial and ethnic disparities in employer-sponsored insurance (ESI). This study estimates two models to determine the relative effects of each of these three sets of characteristics on the likelihood a worker has a job with ESI. One model has two outcomes: the j...