Medicaid enrollees are more likely to wait more than 20 minutes to see a physician during outpatient visits than privately insured patients, according to a study published in the journal Health Affairs.
Researchers identified the disparity in wait times by examining 21.4 million anonymous patient records from 2,581 separate medical practices compiled by athenahealth. An analysis of the records revealed Medicaid patients were 20 percent more likely to wait longer than 20 minutes to see their physician compared to patients with commercial insurance. After adjusting the data to take into account the differences between certain care practices, researchers found that Medicaid patients who visited the same physician as their privately insured counterparts experienced wait times that were 5 percent longer.
"Wait time is one component of quality of care and may proxy for other aspects of the healthcare experience," concluded the study's authors. "Medicaid patients wait even longer relative to privately insured patients in states with lower Medicaid reimbursement rates."
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