"It is possible that providing better health insurance coverage for the patient populations of minority-serving hospitals could improve the quality of care at these hospitals," said the study's first author, David-Dan Nguyen, MPH, research fellow '20 at the Brigham's Center for Surgery and Public Health and the Division of Urologic Surgery and current McGill University medical student. "However, Medicaid expansion under the ACA did not improve receipt of definitive treatment and timeliness of care for cancer patients treated at MSHs. We need to continue improving care at the facility level and continue targeting quality improvement at these hospitals, in addition to providing coverage to cancer patients."

The researchers emphasize that expanding access to health insurance remains an important public health measure.


"We're always hoping to see significant changes when an expansive policy like the ACA is implemented, but this is just the first step of many that needs to be taken in order to achieve equitable, high-quality care," Nguyen said. "Underfunding is an extrinsic, systemic factor that influences the disparities in care that we observe, and to tackle facility-level disparities we need to think about specific initiatives and policy decisions that can directly impact the care at MSHs."


There was no funding for this study.

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