Study: Medicaid copays don’t reduce non-urgent ED visits

Requiring copayments on emergency department visits by Medicaid patients seeking non-urgent care does little or nothing to reduce the costly practice, news research shows (Source: “Copays Don't Reduce Medicaid Non-urgent ED Visits, Study Says,” HealthLeaders Media, Jan. 29, 2015). 

A study released last month by Johns Hopkins researchers and published in JAMA Internal Medicine tracked the use of the emergency department for Medicaid non-urgent care from 2001–2010 in eight states where hospitals were authorized to charge copayments. Researchers compared ED utilization in those eight copay states with those of 10 states where hospitals were not authorized to charge ED copayments.

"With respect to this particular study, we can say that cost-sharing in the ED did not have an impact and that has implications for how cost-sharing is approached in Medicaid moving forward," says study lead author Mona Siddiqui, MD, MPH, assistant professor of internal medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.