Unmet Need for Services Among Publicly and Privately Insured Children

Data on the experiences of children and youth with special health care needs (CYSHCN) accessing health care services and resources is limited, and yet this group represents nearly 20 percent of the pediatric population. To learn more, our Foundation contracted with NORC at the University of Chicago to conduct a national survey and focus groups of parents of CYSHCN to better understand the challenges they face. The findings of this work indicate that across a range of different measures, CYSHCN and their families have lower levels of access to the health care services they need compared to children without special health care needs. There are also differences in experiences for specific subgroups of CYSHCN. 

This brief focuses on Unmet Need for Services Among Publicly and Privately Insured Children. Findings include: 

• CYSHCN with public insurance had greater unmet needs across almost all services compared to those with private insurance. 

• Insurance and financial barriers were the most common obstacles to accessing services for both publicly and privately insured CYSHCN, particularly when accessing medical equipment (82% and 86% of publicly and privately insured CYSHCN, respectively). 

• Parents of publicly insured CYSHCN reported more logistical challenges and time constraints to accessing mental care, home health care, and medical equipment than parents of privately insured CYSHCN. 

Read more about the survey and focus group methodology and view the other data briefs.