Dr. Linda Duska, associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology, teamed up with Asst. Public Health Prof. Carolyn Engelhard, whose expertise lies in health policy analysis, for a recent article in Gynecologic Oncology, a clinical journal focusing on women’s reproductive health and cancer. The paper, made available online last week, analyzes the impact of the Affordable Care Act on women’s reproductive health care providers.
The paper outlines several benefits for both patients and care providers in the implementation of the 2010 health care legislation, lauding the proposal for working to provide health coverage to those without insurance – particularly those with pre-existing conditions.
“The ultimate goals [of ACA] are improving access to care and quality while reducing unsustainable costs,” Duska said in the paper.
According to the paper, however, funding for specialized programs, such as gynecologic oncology, may face new challenges as the act is fully implemented.
In order to cover people who are too poor to pay for necessary medical services, funding would likely be redirected from those smaller programs to general hospital resources, Engelhard said.
“The bottom line is that many of Dr. Duska’s patients at U.Va. are indigent and may be helped by the Medicaid expansion should Virginia opt into the program as part of the ACA,” Engelhard said. “But the partial elimination of the funds to compensate U.Va. for indigent patients may hurt access for patients [to specialized programs.]”
The authors said they hoped Virginia would opt-in to the Medicaid expansion tenet of the act, even if they were ultimately unsure of the long-term implications of the legislation’s implementation.
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