More On Posing As Patients To Monitor Access For Persons With Different Types Of Insurance

I'm listening!

In a prior post, the Disease Management Care Blog described a research study that compared Medicaid vs. commercial insurance access to care.  Research assistants posed as parents calling for an appointment for their child and found - all things being equal - that having Medicaid was associated with less access and longer appointment times.  The DMCB found the difference clinically, statistically and ethically significant.

The prescient DMCB also predicted that State Medicaid programs would...

1) adopt the same methodology to monitor access, and

2) possibly figure out a way to sanction physicians who discriminate on the basis of insurance status. 

Little did it know it would get the first part right so quickly, the only minor difference being that it's being run out of Washington D.C. 

Despite official protestations to the contrary, the veracity of the second part remains to be seen.

+++++++++++

Follow-up, 6/28/11, 21:49 hrs:  In an unusual display of common sense, CMS has decided to cancel this ill-fated initiative.  The DMCB still takes credit for the prediction.