A basic element of a medical home is a regular place that children can go—whether it be a doctor’s office, clinic, or health center—when they are sick. The survey asked parents whether there is a place, and what kind of place, the family usually goes when the child is sick or when the family needs advice about the child’s health.
Overall, 90.7 percent of CSHCN have a usual source of sick care. For the majority of children (74.9 percent), this is a doctor’s office; for 11.2 percent, it is a clinic or health center; and for 4.6 percent it is another setting. The parents of just 7.4 percent of CSHCN report that their child has no usual source of care, and an additional 2.0 percent rely on a hospital emergency department.
Children with private insurance are more likely than those with public insurance, who in turn are more likely than uninsured children, to have a usual source of care. Of CSHCN with private insurance, 83.1 percent go to a doctor’s office and 6.7 percent a clinic or health center, while 6.3 percent are reported to have no usual source of care. Of those with public insurance, whether alone or in combination with private insurance, two-thirds go to a doctor’s office and 15.8 percent to a clinic, while approximately 8 percent have no usual source of care. Of uninsured CSHCN, just over half go to a doctor’s office and 19.8 percent to a clinic or health center, and 14.4 percent have no usual source of care.
A similar disparity is seen by race and ethnicity. While the majority of children in each racial and ethnic group go to a doctor’s office for their regular care, this percentage ranges from 60.8 percent among Hispanic children to 81.4 percent among non-Hispanic Whites. Likewise, the percentage that go to a clinic or health center ranges from 7.6 percent of non-Hispanic White children to 22.5 percent of Hispanics, and the percentage with no usual source of care from 6.3 percent of non-Hispanic Whites to 9.3 percent of non-Hispanic Blacks.
Charts and Data Tables
Usual Source of Sick Care Among CSHCN
Data table for pie chart
|Clinic or Health Center||11.2%|
|No Usual Source||7.4%|
|Other Usual Source||4.6%|
Usual Source of Care, by Insurance Type
Data table for bar chart
|Insurance Type||Doctor's Office||Clinic or Health Center||Other||Emergency Room||None|
|Both Private and Public||67.0%||15.8%||6.2%||2.5%||8.5%|
Usual Source of Care, by Race/Ethnicity
Data table for bar chart
|Race/Ethnicity||Doctor's Office||Clinic or Health Center||Other||Emergency Room||None|