Medicaid Expansion May Help Prevent Kidney Failure, Improve Access to Kidney-Related Care

Journal of the American Society of Nephrology

JASN

States with broader Medicaid coverage have lower incidences of kidney failure and smaller insurance-related gaps in access to kidney disease care. Those are the findings of a study appearing in an upcoming issue of the (). The results point to the potential benefits of Medicaid expansion on chronic disease prevention and care.

Chronic disease care is a major source of rising health care expenditures, and access to care for uninsured individuals with a chronic disease has eroded over the last decade. The Affordable Care Act is expanding Medicaid coverage of low-income adults, though not all states are participating in this expansion. Most previous studies of Medicaid coverage have focused on primary care or emergency room services and have not carefully examined Medicaid's effects on chronic disease care.

The care of patients approaching kidney failure, or end-stage renal disease (ESRD), is a useful model to study the potential effects of Medicaid expansion on chronic disease care because ESRD care is costly and the quality of pre-ESRD care is tracked nationally.

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Source: Medical Xpress