A public health model of Medicaid emergency room use.

This study builds a public health model of Medicaid emergency room use for 57 upstate counties in New York from 1985 to 1987. The principle explanatory variables are primary care use (based in physicians' offices, freestanding clinics, and hospital outpatient departments), the concentration of poverty, and geographic and hospital availability. These factors influence the emergency room use of all Medicaid aid categories apart from the Supplemental Security Income recipients. Inherent in these findings are a number of policy implications that are explored in this article.