Medi-Cal Birth Statistics, by Select Characteristics and California Resident Hospital Births

Calendar Years 2007-2019

Statewide

http://www.dhcs.ca.gov/dataandstats/Pages/PublicReportingGuidelines.aspx

MIS/DSS Data Warehouse

Readers should note that pregnant women enrolled in Medi-Cal are generally poor, usually unemployed, and lack private insurance. Their pregnancies may be marked not only by substance use, but by lack of self-care, poor nutrition, smoking, homelessness, and stress that may affect their pregnancy and their children. Because these factors have not been controlled for, readers should not attempt to compare health delivery systems to one another based solely on the statistics presented in this dataset. Many factors influence the likelihood of receiving a comorbidity diagnosis prior to or at the time of delivery, including insurance status, language barriers, and continuity of care. These factors may result in the underreporting of chronic conditions, especially in vulnerable populations. When comparing Medi-Cal populations, readers should be aware of subpopulation size. Although some Medi-Cal subpopulations may disclose a high percentage of adverse birth outcomes, they only constitute a small fraction of Medi-Cal’s total births. Readers should interpret the greater occurrence of negative health outcomes in these small groups in light of their population size. A necessary step in comparing outcomes among health systems is risk adjustment. Risk adjustment is a method used to remove or reduce the effects of confounding factors in studies in which cases are not randomly assigned to different treatments, or in this case, systems of care. Multivariable adjustment is outside the scope of this type of statistical report. This dataset is intended to provide descriptive statistics, not to draw conclusions about the health care delivery system.

Certified eligibles are those beneficiaries deemed qualified for Medi-Cal by a valid eligibility determination, and who have enrolled into the program. This classification excludes beneficiaries who have not met a monthly share-of-cost obligation. Blank cells represent values that are not shown to protect the confidentiality of the individuals summarized in the data. Department of Health Care Services de-identifies data in accordance with the DHCS Data De-identification Guidelines (DDG). The term "certified eligible" includes beneficiaries who have been determined eligible for Medi-Cal based on a valid eligibility determination. Certified eligibles do not include individuals who may be eligible to enroll in the program, or are in the process of becoming a certified eligible, but have not enrolled. In addition, the definition used here only includes beneficiaries who are eligible to receive Medi-Cal-covered health care services during the month. This means that beneficiaries who must meet a share of cost (SOC), but have not met their monthly SOC, are not included in the counts.

State of California, Department of Health Care Services, Medi-Cal Birth Report Tables from 2007 to 2019