The American Journal of Preventive Medicine published a new article, “Eviction, Healthcare Utilization, and Disenrollment Among New York City Medicaid Patients,” finding that evicted healthcare patients in New York City (NYC) were more likely than non-evicted patients to lose Medicaid coverage and that they filled fewer pharmaceutical prescriptions. Evicted patients were less likely to generate any healthcare spending, but average spending was 20% higher among evicted patients who generated spending. As a result, evicted patients generated more spending on average.
The authors obtained eviction data from NYC OpenData on 2017 court-ordered residential evictions voluntarily reported by eviction marshals. They linked the eviction records to New York State Medicaid data and assessed five outcomes during a six-month period after an eviction: Medicaid disenrollment, total medical spending, number of ambulatory care visits, number of acute care visits, and number of pharmaceutical prescription fills. A total of 6,922 NYC Medicaid patients were classified as evicted, 1,312 of whom were compared to non-evicted Medicaid patients with similar demographic and other characteristics, like pre-study healthcare utilization.
Patients who experienced eviction were more likely to be male, Black or Hispanic, Bronx residents, and U.S. citizens. Compared to non-evicted patients, evicted patients had 63% higher odds of losing Medicaid coverage for any length of time during the six-month period after eviction and 43% higher odds of losing coverage for more than 90 days. Evicted patients also filled 68% fewer prescriptions. Evicted patients were less likely than non-evicted patients to generate healthcare spending, but their costs were 20% higher when they did.
The authors acknowledge some limitations in their research, including their inability to capture all evictions in the city or the specific reasons for Medicaid disenrollment. Nonetheless, their findings suggest evictions reduce access to healthcare while at the same time increasing healthcare costs.
The article can be found at: https://bit.ly/3nXSt6y