After losing Medicaid coverage, many patients land in hospitals

People who have spotty Medicaid coverage are more than three times likelier than those who maintain continuous coverage to be hospitalized for an illness that could have been managed outside the hospital with doctors' visits and medication, according to a study. The findings call into question the practice of having Medicaid recipients re-qualify every few months for benefits, experts said, suggesting that constant re-qualifications may be more costly in the end.