October 02, 2007

Health Claims Show Little Change in New Orleans Physician/Population Ratio since Katrina

Two years after Hurricane Katrina, health claims submitted to Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Louisiana indicate that, in the aggregate, the total number of physicians practicing in the greater New Orleans area per 1,000 residents is near its pre-storm level.

“Three fourths of the population of greater New Orleans is back, according to the best available estimates,” said Blue Cross President and CEO Gery J. Barry, who is a Fellow of the Society of Actuaries and a member of the American Academy of Actuaries. “Paralleling this repopulation trend, our claims data indicate that there are about three fourths of the pre-storm number of physicians now practicing in the region as well.”

Barry announced the release of a white paper prepared by Blue Cross staff after media coverage and anecdotal evidence continued to suggest a chronic healthcare shortage in the four parishes known as Region 1: Jefferson, Orleans, Plaquemines and St. Bernard. The white paper, Physician Availability in Greater New Orleans: Two Years After Hurricane Katrina, publishes information on the number of primary care physicians and specialists in Region 1 who are actively filing claims with the company. In addition to Blue Cross network providers, who represent about 90 percent of all providers participating in this region prior to Katrina, the analysis included claims submitted by non-network providers as well.

The white paper compares this data with population estimates to determine the ratio of primary care physicians and specialists per 1,000 people in the region. The data indicate that Region 1 as a whole has experienced little or no change in the number of physicians per 1,000 residents. Both pre- and post-Katrina, the density ratio of 2.4 practicing physicians per 1,000 residents is on par with the national average.

“While this ‘big picture’ comparison of physician density pre-and post-Katrina is encouraging, access to care can still be an issue,” Barry said. “Primary care capacity remains limited, and there are other factors to be considered as well. For example, some of the doctors submitting claims may be spending only a part of their time in the region, or are seeing a number of patients from outside the region. Also, many individuals may not be able to locate the same doctors they saw before the 2005 hurricanes. Finally, long-standing professional relationships that doctors had with other doctors have been disrupted, and this can create problems in finding the right doctors for referring patients,” Barry said.

“This disruption means that patients have to adjust to a changing configuration of providers,” Barry said. “In addition, access to proper healthcare for the uninsured is particularly challenging. The safety net of the charity hospital system collapsed and has only been restored to a limited level.

“This white paper provides solid data to work from for those who are studying these complicated issues,” Barry said. “Blue Cross is going to continue studying issues that remain critical in the New Orleans area.”

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Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Louisiana is Louisiana-owned and -operated. Marking its 73rd anniversary this year, the company is an independent licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association. It is a tax-paying mutual company, owned by its policyholders. Headquartered in Baton Rouge, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Louisiana also has district offices in Alexandria, Houma, Lafayette, Lake Charles, Monroe, New Orleans and Shreveport. The company’s subsidiaries include HMO Louisiana, Inc. and Southern National Life Insurance Company, Inc.