Uninsured Health Care

Health care centers are extremely important for the uninsured and underinsured population in the United States. This study compared the utilization and preventive care of patients in 330 federally funded health care centers to patients utilizing other medical settings. The study found that patients that utilized health centers had fewer office visits and hospitalizations than those patients that used other medical care facilities. Other findings concluded that of those patients who were uninsured had fewer outpatient and emergency room visits due to the utilization of health care centers. The data collection methods used over a 2-year span were through a Medical Expenditure Panel Survey and five household interviews of the 33,137 adult
participants over the age of 18 that utilized health centers. The overall finding in this study was that health centers provide a safety net for those who are uninsured or underinsured. Health centers provide necessary care for those patients that are medically disadvantaged which result in lower utilization of hospital emergency rooms for non-emergent treatment as well as higher rates of preventative care.