An article forthcoming in Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved examined access to care and service use among non-elderly uninsured rural and urban residents. Some of the key findings are that both rural and uninsured residents face serious barriers to care compared with those with health insurance coverage; rural uninsured are more likely to have a usual source of care and to have used ambulatory care in the past year than the urban uninsured; and rural residents, insured or not, have difficulty accessing after hours care and traveling to see their usual provider. These findings present important issues to consider for rural providers who may be serving as the usual source of care for uninsured community members and as the state looks to expand health insurance coverage. Read the policy brief on the study by the Maine Rural Health Research Center.
