Journal of general internal medicine
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Medicaid expansion and subsidized private plans purchased on the Affordable Care Act's (ACA) Marketplaces accounted for most of the ACA's coverage gains. ⋯ Medicaid offers better protections than Marketplace plans on most measures of access and financial strain.
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Academic health centers (AHCs) face unique challenges in providing continuity to a medically and socially complex patient population. Little is known about what drives patient loss in these settings. ⋯ Younger patient age, markers of social vulnerability, and physician transiency are associated with patient loss at AHCs, providing targets to improve continuity of care within these settings.
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For patients diagnosed with chronic illness, attitude towards treatment may play an important role in health and survival. For example, negative attitudes towards treatment have been related to poorer adherence to treatment recommendations and prescribed medication across a range of chronic illnesses. In addition, prior research has shown that attitude towards treatment assessed through a psychiatric interview predicted survival at 1 year after bone marrow transplantation with great accuracy (> 90%). ⋯ An individual's attitude towards the treatment process predicted survival, raising the possibility that optimal clinical management would include ways to probe these attitudes and intervene where possible. The ease of administering the MMAT-20 and adaptability to other illnesses could facilitate this endeavor.
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Interprofessional strategies for promoting tobacco cessation lead to enhanced quit rates among patients; however, current approaches might not effectively support patients with their quit attempts after they are discharged from the hospital. This paper explores opportunities for interprofessional collaboration between health system-based providers and community pharmacists, as one proposed approach to bridging tobacco cessation services during transitions of care. ⋯ Community pharmacists can offer a convenient solution to obtain the post-discharge medication and counseling support that patients need to increase their chances of quitting for good. Additional steps are discussed to improve broadscale capacity of this service being provided in community pharmacies.
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While the impact of the COVID-19 recession on the economy is clear, there is limited evidence on how the COVID-19 pandemic-related job losses among low-income people may have affected their access to health care. ⋯ In a survey of 4 Southern States during pandemic, the newly unemployed had higher rates of uninsurance and worse access to care-largely due to financial barriers-and reported more housing and food insecurity than other groups. Our study highlights the vulnerability of low-income populations who experienced a job loss, especially in Texas, which did not expand Medicaid.