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April 22, 2014 at 10:47 AM
Some of the uninsured getting insurance through the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act might be unhealthy, but their claims are only just now to creeping onto the spreadsheets.
Watertown, Mass.-based athenahealth Inc. says it sees no evidence that the flood of newly insured are causing any noticeable effect on its clients’ billing.
The company has worked with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to set up ACAView, a window into physician practice performance.
The company looked at five categories of visits – for adult primary care physicians, pediatricians, gynecologists, surgeons and other providers – and found the proportion of visits related to new patients was slightly lower this year than last in every category but pediatrics.
Both new and established patients were slightly less likely to come in with a major indicator of poor health – diabetes.
About 6.4 percent of the new patients who appeared in the first quarter had diabetes, down from 6.6 percent of the new patients in the first quarter of last year.
The state of medical billing could change once these people understand their new coverage better.
