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ACA could increase demand for primary care, exceed supply by 10%
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The Affordable Care Act’s expansion of insurance coverage could increase demand for primary care, thus exceeding services by 10%, according to data published in Health Affairs. Researchers who conducted the study have called for future policy research to meet the demand.
“That increase, in turn, will boost demand for primary care services, potentially straining the primary care workforce and even limiting access to health care for both the newly and the currently insured,” the researchers wrote.
According to Elbert S. Huang, MD, associate professor of medicine at the Pritzker School of Medicine at the University of Chicago, and Kenneth Finegold, a social science analyst in the division of health care financing policy at the US Department of Health and Human Services, the 10% estimate will require 7,200 additional primary care providers (or 2.5% of the current supply).
Using primary care service areas as a small area of analysis, the researchers estimated the number of uninsured Americans in each primary care service area in 2010, the number of patients expected to gain insurance after the full implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), and the increase in demand for primary care visits anticipated as a result of the increased coverage, they wrote.
“With the anticipated expansion of coverage to 29 million currently uninsured Americans, we estimated that the overall increased demand for primary care services would translate into an additional 25.7 million primary care visits,” they wrote. “These visits would require the services of 7,200 primary care providers — a number of providers that is 2.5% of the 2010 supply of primary care providers, or 3.5% of the 2010 supply of primary care physicians.”
Although the demand is reportedly modest, Huang and Finegold wrote that 7 million Americans live in areas that they forecast will see more than a 10% increase in demand.
These findings suggest further policy research to determine the effect of the ACA on the demand for primary care services, they wrote.
Disclosure: The researchers report no relevant financial disclosures.
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