Race, Segregation, and Physicians' Participation in Medicaid

Overview

Journal Milbank Q

Specialties Health Services
Public Health

Date 2006 Jun 15

PMID 16771818

Citations 18

Authors

Jessica Greene

Jan Blustein

Beth C Weitzman

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Many studies have explored the extent to which physicians' characteristics and Medicaid program factors influence physicians' decisions to accept Medicaid patients. In this article, we turn to patient race/ethnicity and residential segregation as potential influences. Using the 2000/2001 Community Tracking Study and other sources we show that physicians are significantly less likely to participate in Medicaid in areas where the poor are nonwhite and in areas that are racially segregated. Surprisingly-and contrary to the prevailing Medicaid participation theory--we find no link between poverty segregation and Medicaid participation when controlling for these racial factors. Accordingly, this study contributes to an accumulating body of circumstantial evidence that patient race influences physicians' choices, which in turn may contribute to racial disparities in access to health care.

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