Pacific D
Insurance Coverage and Maternal Health in the National Hospital Care Survey (307829)
Josephine Alford, National Center for Health StatisticsGeoff Jackson, National Center for Health Statistics
Alex Schwartzman, National Center for Health Statistics
*Sonja Williams, National Center for Health Statistics
Keywords: insurance, delivery, maternal health, Outpatient, emergency department, medicaid,
Negative health outcomes have been correlated with inadequate health insurance. Medicaid covers about half of all births in the United States; however, Medicaid is terminated for some mothers after delivery. The National Hospital Care Survey (NHCS) contains information on patients, conditions, and care received during visits to hospital inpatient, emergency (ED), or outpatient departments (OPD), from a sample of hospitals across the Nation. NHCS data are not nationally representative yet but exploratory analysis on hospital care can demonstrate its uniqueness. NHCS collects patient identifiers. Thus, patient records can be linked across hospital settings and over time, to examine key demographics, such as insurance coverage at subsequent visits to EDs or OPDs, among women with deliveries. There were 60,301 women with Medicaid at the time of delivery, approximately 35% of the study population. Of those women 8% had an ED and 18% had an OPD visit post-delivery. This study will analyze insurance coverage and care post-delivery for women who had Medicaid at the time of delivery.