Money isn't everything: rural physicians identify other factors that facilitate providing prenatal care for low-income women.
The problem of physicians dropping the practice of obstetrics is becoming more serious each year in the United States. Those who remain in practice are increasingly reluctant to serve women who receive Medicaid assistance. Previous research has tended to focus on low reimbursement and liability as barriers that physicians perceive to providing prenatal care to low-income clients. In a 1992 survey in rural Idaho, however, physicians who have been serving these clients for at least 4 years rated other factors equally or more important in treating low-income women. These other factors, discussed in this paper, have to do with the administrative and psychosocial support coordinated by public health nurses for their internal clients, the physicians, as well as for their external clients, pregnant women.
Machala
M
M
Eccles Graduate School of Business, University of Utah, Salt Lake City 84112.
Miner
M W
MW
D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D005194:Family Practice / Q000191:economics / Q000458:organization & administration; D005260:Female; D006297:Health Services Accessibility; D006801:Humans; D007061:Idaho; D007349:Insurance, Health, Reimbursement / Q000191:economics; D008484:Medicaid / Q000191:economics; D009774:Obstetrics / Q000191:economics / Q000458:organization & administration; D010353:Patient Education as Topic; D011203:Poverty; D011247:Pregnancy; D011295:Prenatal Care / Q000458:organization & administration; D011637:Public Health Nursing / Q000458:organization & administration; D012423:Rural Health; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014481:United States