US physicians 16 percent less likely to accept new Medicaid patients than privately insured; wide variation across CSG/ERC region

A new analysis by the Centers for Disease Control finds that 68.9 percent of U.S. office-based physicians accepted new Medicaid patients in 2013, while 84.7 percent accepted privately insured patients.

In CSG/ERC states that gap was lower at 13.4 percent, but there was wide variation between states. Delaware, Maine, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, and Vermont physicians were significantly more likely to accept new Medicaid patients than the U.S. average. However, physicians in New York and New Jersey were significantly less likely than the national average. At 38.7 percent acceptance, New Jersey physicians were the least likely in the United States to make appointments for new Medicaid patients in 2013.

Mirroring the national average, physicians in ERC states were about as likely to accept new Medicare patients as privately insured. While the Affordable Care Act paid states to increase Medicaid primary care payment rates to Medicare levels in 2013, some states had not implemented that increase in 2013. It will be interesting to see if acceptance rates are higher in the 2014 survey.