Medicaid and African American outpatient mental health treatment.
The present study tested the hypothesis that Medicaid-financed African Americans would be more likely to receive outpatient mental health treatment than African Americans whose treatment was financed by private insurance. The hypothesis was confirmed: when compared with privately insured persons eligible for care under either fee-for-service or managed care, the Black-White gap in outpatient service use was significantly smaller under Medicaid. There was no racial difference in outpatient treatment rates among the uninsured. The often-noted difference between Blacks and Whites in the likelihood of receiving outpatient mental health treatment is confined largely to the privately insured.
Center for Mental Health Services Research, School of Social Welfare, University of California at Berkeley, 94720-7400, USA. snowden@uclink4.berkeley.edu
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D001741:Black or African American; D000553:Ambulatory Care; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008484:Medicaid; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000534:rehabilitation*; D008605:Mental Health Services / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D008875:Middle Aged