Beyond Being Insured: Insurance Coverage Denial as a Major Barrier to Accessing Care During Pregnancy and Postpartum

Jusung Lee, Krista J. Howard, Caleb Leong, Timothy J. Grigsby and Jeffrey T. Howard

Clinical Nursing Research, 2023, vol. 32, issue 8, 1092-1103

Abstract: This study investigates the association between insurance coverage denial and delays in care during pregnancy and postpartum. An online survey was administered in March and April 2022 to women who were either pregnant or within 1 year postpartum ( n  = 1,113). The outcome was delayed care, measured at four time points: during pregnancy and 1 week, 2 to 6 weeks, and after 7 weeks postpartum. The key covariate was insurance coverage denial by providers during pregnancy. Delayed care due to having an unaccepted insurance and being “out-of-network†was more pronounced at 1 week postpartum with 3.37 times and 3.47 times greater odds and in 2 to 6 weeks postpartum with 5.74 times and 2.97 times greater odds, respectively. The association between insurance denial and delays in care encapsulated transportation, rural residency, time issues, and financial constraints. The findings suggest that coverage denial is associated with significant delays in care, providing practical implications for effective perinatal care.

Keywords: delay in care; insurance coverage denial; financial constraints; transportation; rural (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/10547738231177332 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:clnure:v:32:y:2023:i:8:p:1092-1103

DOI: 10.1177/10547738231177332

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Clinical Nursing Research
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().