One of the objectives of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was to make it affordable for Americans of all ages to actively take part in preventative care, including adolescents. The ACA allows adolescent patients to receive preventive services recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics without a copay. The American Academy of Pediatrics’ guidelines recommends preventive care services up to age 21, including an annual visit.
A new study shows that the ACA has been moderately successful in getting more adolescents to see doctors for annual wellness visits, but more needs to be done.
The study—conducted by JAMA Pediatrics, a medical journal published by the American Medical Association—compared the adolescent frequency of annual wellness visits before and after the ACA went into effect in 2010. The study polled a U.S. demography reference group of 25,695 adolescents ages 10-17 for the years pre-dating the ACA (2007-2009) and following its 2010 enactment (2012-2014).
The results showed that rates of preventive wellness visits for adolescents 10 to 17 years of age increased from 41% pre-ACA to 48% post-ACA. Minority and low-income groups showed significant improvement in making annual visits. Hispanic adolescents’ wellness visits increased by 20% and African-American adolescent wellness visits by 10%.
The study also measured an increase in individual time adolescent patients spent with the physicians and the amount of guidance provided on the topics of healthy eating, physical activity, seatbelt use, bike helmet use, second-hand smoke, and dental visits. Guidance given to adolescent patients increased the most in healthy eating and physical activity and slightly decreased in helmet use. Time alone with clinicians only increased by 1% comparing post-ACA to pre-ACA visits.
However, while annual preventive check-ups increased post-ACA, less than 50% of the population of adolescents were provided preventative care.
The study concluded: “Despite modest to moderate increases, with greatest gains for underserved youth, adolescent preventive care rates remain low, highlighting the need for increased efforts to bring adolescents into well care and improve clinician delivery of preventive care within their practices.”