Individuals' use of care while uninsured: effects of time since episode inception and episode length

Abstract

Few studies have addressed how an individual's use of care may vary over the course of an episode of their being uninsured or across uninsured episodes of varying duration. This research models the probability that an uninsured individual has: a) any medical expenditures or charges, and b) any office-based visit during each month of an uninsured episode. We find that the ultimate length of an individual's episode of being uninsured bears relatively little on individuals' use of healthcare in any particular month. We also find that the probability of healthcare utilization rises during the first year of the episode, with more use in the second 6 months of the year compared to the first 6 months.