Do Disruptions in Health Insurance Continue to Affect Access to Care Even After Coverage Is Regained?

Health insurance coverage is important for enabling access to medical care, but obtaining quality care depends also on maintaining stable patient-provider relationships [1, 2]. Among the most important of these relationships are those between patients and usual source of care providers (USCP), who help monitor preventive care and manage chronic illness. Gaps in insurance coverage can disrupt these relationships, which take time to establish, and therefore may affect access even after coverage is regained. While previous studies have demonstrated that individuals with insurance disruptions report worse access to care compared to those insured continuously [3‐6], additional studies are needed to determine whether this reflects barriers to care experienced while uninsured, or whether prior coverage disruptions have lasting effects even after coverage is regained. In this study, we investigated the association between having a USCP and past disruptions in insurance coverage among insured adults using a longitudinal, nationally representative sample. …