Prompt access to outpatient care post-incarceration among adults with a history of substance use: Predisposing, enabling, and need-based factors.

Introduction: As expanded Medicaid coverage reduces financial barriers to receiving health care among formerly incarcerated adults, more information is needed to understand the factors that predict prompt use of health care after release among insured adults with a history of substance use. This study's aim was to estimate the associations between characteristics suggested by the Andersen behavioral model of health service use and measures of health care use during the immediate reentry period and in the presence of Medicaid coverage.

Methods: In this retrospective cohort study, we linked individual-level data from multiple Wisconsin agencies.

Association Between Assistance With Medicaid Enrollment and Use of Health Care After Incarceration Among Adults With a History of Substance Use.

Importance: The transition from prison to community is characterized by elevated morbidity and mortality, particularly owing to drug overdose. However, most formerly incarcerated adults with substance use disorders do not use any health care, including treatment for substance use disorders, during the initial months after incarceration.

Objective: To evaluate whether a prerelease Medicaid enrollment assistance program is associated with increased health care use within 30 days after release from prison.