Big improvement -- almost three out of four CT physicians accepting new Medicaid patients

A new analysis by the Centers for Disease Control finds that 72.5% of CT office-based physicians accepted new Medicaid patients in 2013, better than the US average of 68.9%. This is a big improvement over a different survey in 2011 finding that only 60.7% of office-based physicians in CT were accepting new Medicaid patients – the fourth worst rate among states at the time. This improvement is no doubt due in large part to dedicated efforts at DSS since 2011 to address serious challenges to provider participation in Medicaid and the resulting quality and access improvements. This good news couldn’t come at a better time, with over a hundred thousand new members joining the program in the last year due to the Affordable Care Act expansion. However there is more work to do – 13.6% more CT physicians accept new Medicare patients than Medicaid and 18% more accept new privately insured patients. We are also behind our neighboring states of MA (76.0%) and Rhode Island (71.0%), but well ahead of New York (57.1%) in Medicaid participation. New Jersey is lowest in the nation with only 38.7% of office-based physicians accepting new Medicaid patients.