GHall_MA-Medicare-Medicaid

The included document uses GIS to investigate and compare Medicare and Medicaid provider infrastructure in Massachusetts. Provider addresses were geocoded and then compared to the geospatial locations of each insurance programs' eligible patient populations (percent of population of each census tract over 65 for Medicare and percent population for each census tract below the Federal Poverty Line for Medicaid). Massachusetts (MA) was picked for the comparison because Medicaid provider data, unlike Medicare provider data, is only available on cms.gov's website going back to 2011 and 2010, before the ACA was implemented in most states. However, MA had enacted "An Act Providing Access to Affordable, Quality, Accountable Health Care" in 2006, which had similar provisions to the subsequent ACA. The included maps used direct comparisons, buffers, and kernel density. Provider addresses obtained from: CMS' MAX Provider Characteristics and Provider of Services Current Files.