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Most Postpartum Spending Occurs Beyond 60 Days After Delivery
Author Name, ProPublica
2022-05
The postpartum period is a vulnerable time for both birthing parent and newborn and is critically important to their health and well-being. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) recommends ongoing, comprehensive care, including physical, social, and psychological services, during the postpartum period. In large part because of an increasing maternal mortality rate in the US – one that is 3 to 4 times higher for African-American and Native American pregnant people – public and private decision makers have increased their focus on care in the postpartum period.
We use HCCI's unique dataset to characterize spending on care used by birthing parents with employer-sponsored insurance during the postpartum period. Because the postpartum period is defined differently depending on the entity and purpose, our analysis of postpartum utilization and spending covers a full year after birth.
We also include estimates for shorter periods, specifically 60 and 90 days, since those may be of particular interest to public and private decision makers. For example, while newborns born with Medicaid coverage are eligible for up to a full year, Medicaid programs are only required to cover most pregnant people with incomes below 133 percent of the federal poverty level through 60 days postpartum (though 36 states and the District of Columbia extend eligibility beyond that).
Some members of Congress have proposed extending Medicaid eligibility for pregnant people to one year postpartum to align with the coverage that children receive. To assess the potential need for health care services among birthing parents in the year after delivering a baby we analyzed the spending of health care services among the commercially insured population across a full year, focusing on birthing parents , not newborns.
More than 70 percent of postpartum spending occurs after 90 days
Spending on behalf of birthing parents spans the full year following childbirth among our sample. Although nearly 20 percent of overall postpartum spending was in the first 60 days, and almost 30 percent of spending was in the first 90 days, approximately 70 percent of spending occurred over the rest of the year (Figure 1). Per person spending for the 60 days after delivery was $580, and $870 for the first 90 days postpartum. Over the course of the full postpartum year, per person spending was just above $3,100.
Figure 1: Spending Across the Postpartum Year
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[1] URL:
https://healthcostinstitute.org/hcci-research/most-postpartum-spending-occurs-beyond-60-days-after-delivery
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