Dr. Cyril Chang Published in American Journal of Management Care

For release:  April 10, 2015

Dr. Cyril Chang, professor of Economics, was published in The American Journal of Management Care (AJMC).The paper entitled “Insurance Impact on Nonurgent and Primary Care—Sensitive Emergency Department Use” was coauthored with former FCBE doctoral student, Weiwei Chen, and Teresa Waters, professor of Preventative Medicine and chair of the Department of Preventative Medicine at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center.

The study analyzed a year’s worth of emergency room records that totaled more than 2 million visits. Research showed that having public insurance, such as Medicaid, made a person more likely to go to the emergency room for conditions that could have been treated in a primary care doctor’s office. The results have important implications for the impact of the Affordable Care Act, as the newly insured may at least temporarily have a high number of visits to the ER due to Medicaid expansion.  

Editors of AJMC have issued a press release to summarize the contribution of this article to related research.  For the press release, please click here.