Continuity of Care for Chronically Ill Maryland Medicaid Patients

摘要

Data from the Medicaid claims files of 7,200 chronically ill Maryland Medicaidpatients, and data from the medical records of a subset of these patients, were analyzed to determine the extent of continuity and coordination of their care. Findings indicate that continuity of care within the chronically ill Maryland Medicaid population (specifically in a population of hypertensives and diabetics) is on par with, and sometimes better than, continuity found in other research on non-Medicaid, nonchronically ill populations. Study findings also suggest that physicians in primary care-oriented specialties (e.g., family practice, general practice, and internal medicine) deliver significantly higher levels of continuity than do physicians in other specialty groups.