Massachusetts Personal Injury Lawyer Blog

Lack of Insurance Increases Inpatient Death Risk

Not having an insurance card can have hazardous effects on a patient's health, even inside a hospital, as two recent studies show.

One study, conducted by the Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, focused on hospital mortality rates for several conditions for adults (ages 18-64) and found significant differences between those who had health insurance versus those who did not.

Findings:

* Uninsured heart-attack patients' mortality rates were 52 percent higher than those of patients with private insurance.

* Hospital mortality rates for uninsured stroke patients were 49 percent higher than those with private insurance.

* Death rates from pneumonia were 21 percent higher among hospitalized patients covered through Medicaid, the federal-state insurance program for the poor, that those with private insurance.

The findings also include the fact that compared with privately insured patients, uninsured patients or those on Medicaid were generally younger, poorer, less likely to be white and more likely to be admitted through the hospital emergency department, which could mean that illness was more severe or could be the result of not having a regular source of care.

The study, based on an analysis of more than 150,000 hospital-discharge records for patients admitted in 2005 with one of the three diagnoses, was published in The Journal of Hospital Medicine.

The second study, conducted by emergency physicians at the University of Buffalo, NY, analyzed approximately 200,000 trauma patient records from 649 hospitals between 2001 and 2005.

Findings:

* The study found that uninsured patients were more likely to die from auto-accident and gunshot wounds than privately insured patients with similar injuries.

* However, the findings showed that Medicaid patients injured in auto-accidents actually had lower death rates than those with private coverage, suggesting that other factors besides insurance rates, are influencing the outcomes in trauma care.

As Dr. Dietrich Jehle, the primary author of the report, noted, emergency physicians generally don't know the insurance status of trauma patients when they first arrive for treatment, however factors such as race and insurance status were significant in predicting which patients in the study would not survive.

Generally, uninsured adult patients have about a 25 percent greater mortality rate for all conditions compared with insured adults. In the case of auto accidents, the uninsured are also less likely to wear seat belts, more likely to drive older, less-safe cars and engage in other risky behaviors.

Jehle also pointed out that the uninsured are generally in poorer health, and thus less able to survive traumatic injury.

The results of the Buffalo study were presented in early June at the annual meeting of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine in Phoenix.

You can find more information about these studies at HealthFinder.gov.


Boston personal injury attorney Thomas M. Kiley concentrates on legal cases regarding health issues.