title: How will the Affordable Care Act affect the use of health care services?
abstract: In January 2014, the Affordable Care Act extended access to health insurance coverage to an estimated 30 million previously uninsured people. This issue brief provides state-level estimates of the increased demand for physician and hospital services that is expected to result from expanded access and assesses the sufficiency of the existing supply of providers to accommodate the anticipated increase in demand. We project that primary care providers will see, on average, 1.34 additional office visits per week, accounting for a 3.8 percent increase in visits nationally. Hospital outpatient departments will see, on average, 1.2 to 11.0 additional visits per week, or an average increase of about 2.6 percent nationally. Increases of the magnitude likely to be generated by the Affordable Care Act will have modest effects on the demand for health services, and the existing supply of providers should be sufficient to accommodate this increased demand.
authors.affiliation: Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, New York University.
authors.forename: Sherry
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Glied
authors.forename: Stephanie
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Ma
mesh_terms: D018166:Health Care Reform / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence; D006297:Health Services Accessibility / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006301:Health Services Needs and Demand / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006280:Health Workforce; D006801:Humans; D019458:Insurance Coverage; D007348:Insurance, Health; D009819:Office Visits / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D058991:Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act; D011320:Primary Health Care / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D014481:United States