Medical care
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Efficacious medications to treat opioid use disorders (OUDs) have been slow to diffuse into practice, and insurance coverage limits may be one important barrier. ⋯ Many Marketplace plans either do not cover or require prior authorization for coverage of OUD medications, and these restrictions are often more common for OUD medications than for short-acting opioid pain medications. Regulators tasked with enforcement of the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act, which requires that standards for formulary design for mental health and substance use disorder drugs be comparable to those for other medications, should focus attention on formulary coverage of OUD medications.
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Expansions of health insurance coverage tend to increase hospital emergency department (ED) utilization and inpatient admissions. However, provisions in the Affordable Care Act that expanded primary care supply were intended in part to offset the potential for increased hospital utilization. ⋯ Increases in coverage accelerated a long-term increase in ED visits and prevented an even larger decrease in inpatient admissions, but changes in coverage do not fully explain these underlying trends. Increases in primary care supply offset the effects of coverage changes only modestly. Policymakers should not overstate the impact of the Affordable Care Act on increasing ED visits, and should focus on better understanding the underlying factors that are driving the trends.