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State Medicaid Fees And Access To Primary Care Physicians, Rajiv Sharma, Sarah E. Tinkler, Arnab Mitra, Sudeshna Pal, Raven Susu-Mago

Economics Faculty Publications and Presentations

Medicaid and uninsured patients are disadvantaged in access to care and are disproportionately Black and Hispanic. Using a national audit of primary care physicians, we examine the relationship between state Medicaid fees for primary care services and access for Medicaid, Medicare, uninsured, and privately insured patients who differ by race/ethnicity and sex. We found that states with higher Medicaid fees had higher probabilities of appointment offers and shorter wait times for Medicaid patients, and lower probabilities of appointment offers and longer wait times for uninsured patients. Appointment offers and wait times for Medicare and privately insured patients were unaffected by …