California Medicaid Beneficiaries Overrepresented As Share Of Emergency Department Visits In 2019

About 41.5% of all emergency department visits in California in 2019 (6,171,273 of 14,853,783 visits) were made by Medicaid beneficiaries. This number is out of proportion because only 25.1% of the state’s population was enrolled in Medi-Cal, the state Medicaid program that same year.

The total number of Medi-Cal beneficiaries grew 37.4%, from 7,226,719 beneficiaries in 2011 to 9,926,000 beneficiaries in 2019. This equals 25.1% of California's total population in 2019.

Trends By Payer For 2011 To 2019

The overall number of emergency department . . .