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Report: New patients under ACA not sicker or more complex

After the ACA passed more than five years ago, a number of critics and skeptics […]

After the ACA passed more than five years ago, a number of critics and skeptics warned that physician offices would be flooded with new patients who were substantially sicker – and thus more complex – leading to longer wait times and increased costs.

It turns out neither happened, at least not over the last year, according to a report from cloud EHR vendor athenahealth.

“On a variety of measures, new patients visiting physician offices in 2014 do not appear to be sicker or more complex than new patients in 2013,” according to the report, which tracks a number of trends over the five-year old ACA in lieu of its anniversary earlier this week.

Nor was there an overflow of new patients that clogged doctor’s offices.

“The proportion of new-patient visits to primary-care providers increased very slightly, from 22.6 percent in 2013 to 22.9 percent in 2014,” the report said.

The report did not explore whether there has been an increase in emergency room visits, which last year did increase from the year prior, with several reports attributing the spike to newly insured paitents under the ACA, particularly those enrolled in Medicaid plans that many providers do not accept. Hence, the ER becomes the doctor’s office.

Whether that trend holds true again remains to be seen, and health officials are working on a so-called “Doc Fix” that would increase the reimbursement rate for Medicaid, a key part of the primary care provider shortage.

While patients haven’t been much sicker, there has been an uptick in mental health diagnosis, not just for new patients but existing patients as well.

“The data shows a contrasting increase in patients with mental disorders, which include a wide range of diagnoses for mental illness and substance abuse disorders,” the report said. “New adult patients showed an increase of 2.7 percent in the diagnosis of mental disorders. But in the practices we are tracking, the prevalence of mental health diagnoses also increased for established patients.”

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