TY - JOUR
T1 - Comparing Healthcare Utilization and Diagnoses in Immigrant Versus Nonimmigrant Youth
AU - Polk, Sarah
AU - Leifheit, Kathryn M.
AU - Brandt, Amelia J.
AU - DeCamp, Lisa Ross
N1 - Funding Information:
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: Kathryn M. Leifheit was supported by an NICHD predoctoral fellowship (1F31HD096767) and an AHRQ postdoctoral fellowship (5T32HS000046; principal investigator: Sarah Polk).
Funding Information:
We offer our thanks to clinicians and staff at CMP who work tirelessly to provide high-quality pediatric care to children in Baltimore. Special thanks to Barbara Cook and Adrianna Moore for their leadership of the TAP program and TAP navigators for their work increasing access to care. Thanks especially to Spencer Wildonger for help with extracting data. Thanks to Jacky Jennings, Sashini Godage, and Lindsay Cooper for help with revisions and figures. The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: Kathryn M. Leifheit was supported by an NICHD predoctoral fellowship (1F31HD096767) and an AHRQ postdoctoral fellowship (5T32HS000046; principal investigator: Sarah Polk).
Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2021.
PY - 2022/6
Y1 - 2022/6
N2 - Introduction: To inform efforts to provide healthcare to uninsurable, immigrant youth, we describe The Access Partnership (TAP) hospital-based charity care program and compare healthcare utilization and diagnoses among TAP and Medicaid patients. Methods: We use propensity scores to match each TAP patient to three Medicaid patients receiving care at a pediatric clinic from October 2010 to June 2015 on demographic characteristics. We use descriptive statistics to compare healthcare visits and diagnoses. Results: TAP (n = 78) and Medicaid patients (n = 234) had similar healthcare utilization, though Medicaid patients had more outpatient visits (10.8 vs. 7.7, p =.002), and TAP patients were more likely to have ever received subspecialty care (38.5% vs. 22.2%, p =.005). Diagnoses were similar between groups, with some exceptions: TAP patients more likely to present with genital and reproductive disease (33.3% vs. 19.7%, p =.013); Medicaid patients more likely to present with endocrine, metabolic, and nutritional disease (52.1% vs. 28.2%, p <.001), psychiatric, behavioral disease, and substance abuse (41.0, 26.9%, p =.026). Conclusions: TAP patients had similar healthcare utilization and diagnoses to matched sample of Medicaid patients. Findings indicate policy proposals that extend public health insurance to all children would likely benefit immigrant children and not incur higher costs than those of low-income U.S. citizen children.
AB - Introduction: To inform efforts to provide healthcare to uninsurable, immigrant youth, we describe The Access Partnership (TAP) hospital-based charity care program and compare healthcare utilization and diagnoses among TAP and Medicaid patients. Methods: We use propensity scores to match each TAP patient to three Medicaid patients receiving care at a pediatric clinic from October 2010 to June 2015 on demographic characteristics. We use descriptive statistics to compare healthcare visits and diagnoses. Results: TAP (n = 78) and Medicaid patients (n = 234) had similar healthcare utilization, though Medicaid patients had more outpatient visits (10.8 vs. 7.7, p =.002), and TAP patients were more likely to have ever received subspecialty care (38.5% vs. 22.2%, p =.005). Diagnoses were similar between groups, with some exceptions: TAP patients more likely to present with genital and reproductive disease (33.3% vs. 19.7%, p =.013); Medicaid patients more likely to present with endocrine, metabolic, and nutritional disease (52.1% vs. 28.2%, p <.001), psychiatric, behavioral disease, and substance abuse (41.0, 26.9%, p =.026). Conclusions: TAP patients had similar healthcare utilization and diagnoses to matched sample of Medicaid patients. Findings indicate policy proposals that extend public health insurance to all children would likely benefit immigrant children and not incur higher costs than those of low-income U.S. citizen children.
KW - Hispanic Americans
KW - children’s health
KW - immigrant health
KW - insurance coverage
KW - social determinants of health
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U2 - 10.1177/15404153211036985
DO - 10.1177/15404153211036985
M3 - Article
C2 - 34355584
AN - SCOPUS:85112182584
SN - 1540-4153
VL - 20
SP - 98
EP - 106
JO - Hispanic Health Care International
JF - Hispanic Health Care International
IS - 2
ER -