Report: RIte Care curbing unnecessary hospitalizations

PROVIDENCE – A new report about RIte Care, the state’s health-insurance program for low- and moderate-income children and their families, concludes that the program is continuing to improve the health of children, pregnant women and families in Rhode Island.
Rhode Island Kids Count, a nonprofit advocacy organization, released the report, “RIte Care Results,” on Nov. 4. Among the findings: Children and adults with Medicaid seek treatment in a hospital emergency room far less frequently than the uninsured. The percentage of emergency hospital admissions for the uninsured in Rhode Island was 83 percent in 2011, but for children and adults with insurance, either Medicaid or private insurance, it was only 39 percent.
The report also said that children with insurance have fewer preventable hospitalizations than children with no health insurance. Preventable hospitalizations are those that could have been avoided by preventive and primary care. Over the past 10 years, from 2001 to 2011, the percentage of preventable hospitalization for uninsured children rose from 7 percent to 20 percent, while for the insured the number decreased from 12 percent to 8 percent. •