Preventable Hospitalization Rate High for Low-Income New Jersey Families, Study Finds

Facing a "lack of health insurance" and a deficit of doctors accepting Medicaid patients, many low-income New Jersey residents are being hospitalized for conditions that could be treated "earlier and less expensively" at a physician's office, a study by the Health Research & Educational Trust of New Jersey found. The Bergen Record reports that while the overall rate of preventable hospitalizations for conditions such as asthma and pneumonia "declined slightly" between 1995 and 1997 for those under 65 years old, the rate in "poor areas" remained "extremely high." The researchers found that some Medicaid patients may wait months for a doctor's appointment and others cannot afford to fill their prescriptions. In addition, many immigrants cited language problems as reasons to avoid seeing a doctor, while some undocumented immigrants said they fear "being discovered" if they seek medical care. To increase access to primary care, the study recommended hiring more "non-English speaking" staff in hospital clinics and establishing more clinics that serve both children and adults to "increase convenience" for families. Separate research has found that New Jersey's overall hospitalization rate for preventable conditions is the highest among the 23 states that track such data, the Record adds (Davis, Bergen Record, 3/30). More information about the HRET report can be found at http://www.njha.com/html/hretprimary.html.