B. Access to Care
VI. Key Issues: Financing & Delivery >> Access to Care (last updated 3.22.15)
Topic Outline
1. Financial Access Barriers
2. Health Disparities
3. Geographic Access Barriers
4. Language Barriers to Care
Links
- Access to Care (Health Affairs topics page)
- The Access Project
- Community Catalyst
- Families USA
- Kaiser Family Foundation Access to Care
- National Health Law Program
- Center for Health and Economy. Provider Access Index. The Provider Access Index (PAI) is based on a patient survey conducted by economists at the University of Minnesota to measure the quality of physician networks and access to care in the non-elderly insurance market. This index provides a tool for evaluating the effect of health policy reforms on the ability of patients to seek out desired doctors and specialists. H&E uses plan-specific, expected PAI to compute an aggregate PAI for the market, including Medicaid. Plan-specific PAI values range from a low of 1.0 for Medicaid to a high of 5.0 for large-network preferred provider organizations (PPO), reflecting low provider choice for Medicaid beneficiaries relative to the large network of physicians available to PPO members.