Health insurance and utilization in Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia

To examine the relationship between health insurance status and health services utilization among HIV-infected patients with active Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia (PCP), the discharge and outpatient databases of a large California medical facility were reviewed. Four hundred fifty records met the inclusion criteria. Logistic regression indicated that those who had publicly funded insurance were about half as likely (95% CI 0.28, 0.99) as were those who had private insurance to undergo bronchoscopy with bronchoalveolar lavage at the time of their first PCP episodes. Further research is required to identify the reasons for this difference.