Twenty percent of D.C. residents do not visit a doctor regularly, with many relying instead on emergency rooms for primary care, according to a comprehensive report on the District’s health care released Wednesday.

While the city has a high rate of health insurance coverage, the report from the RAND Corporation reveals that more than half of emergency room visits are for injuries and ailments that aren’t emergencies, despite the city’s high rate of health insurance coverage.

Nicole Lurie, a RAND researcher, said residents’ overuse of emergency care dates back to 2004. Specifically what prompted the increase, though, still needs to be studied.

“Clearly the distribution of service is not adequately meeting the needs of our residents,” D.C. Department of Health interim Director Carlos Cano said.

This story continues below
Advertisement

The information gathered in the study will be used to come up with a list of recommendations by the spring. Cano said his agency will ask for proposals to use $200 million from the city’s tobacco settlement funds for health care development projects, and $10 million of the settlement dollars will go to community-based programs for managing chronic disease.

What’s clear from the study, Lurie said, is that a lack of hospital beds is not part of the problem in the District.

“Our occupancy rates are about 75 percent; we have a lot of capacity,” she said. “It’s not a matter of just building facilities.”

Health insurance also doesn’t appear to be the culprit, as 91 percent of residents have coverage, the report states.

In terms of disease occurrence, hypertension — striking one in four D.C. adults — ranks as the most common, while heart disease and cancer cause the highest number of deaths.

The new data also confirm long-suspected beliefs about geographic health disparities, with Wards 7 and 8 overall possessing the worst rates of chronic disease and premature death.

dlevitz@dcexaminer.com