More than one-quarter of physicians enrolled in Medicaid provided no care to any Medicaid patients during 2021, according to research from Oregon Health & Science University. This phenomenon of “ghost” physicians creates critical access barriers for the nearly 80 million Americans who rely on Medicaid, a program that disproportionately serves low-income individuals, people with disabilities, and many young Americans from minority communities.
The gap between enrolled providers and those actually delivering care was most severe in psychiatry, where over 40 percent of enrolled psychiatrists saw no Medicaid patients throughout the studied period. Researchers examined administrative claims data across multiple specialties including primary care, cardiology, dermatology, and ophthalmology, revealing a sharp disconnect between official enrollment numbers and actual service availability.
Lead author Dr. Jane Zhu emphasizes that limited access harms individual health while imposing broader systemic costs. The disconnect between provider enrollment and service delivery leads to delayed treatment, worsening health outcomes, and elevated healthcare expenditures. Patients seeking care often encounter extensive waits or outright refusals when physicians listed in Medicaid directories don’t actually provide services, causing frustration as prospective patients “call and go nowhere.”
Some providers remain enrolled as employment conditions or contractual requirements with health systems, regardless of intent or capacity to see Medicaid patients. Others maintain fully booked schedules dominated by commercially insured patients, leaving no bandwidth for additional Medicaid cases.
The findings reveal how traditional enrollment data significantly inflates real care availability, undermining assumptions about healthcare access and threatening health equity objectives for vulnerable populations already facing systemic barriers.
See: “‘Ghost’ Providers Impede Medicaid Patients’ Access to Healthcare Services” (February 2, 2026)
