ABSTRACT SUMMARY: This study set out to create and test a method for determining which doctor or clinic primarily provided prenatal care (PNC) to pregnant patients using Medicaid billing records. The goal was to track PNC visits in a consistent way and identify the main provider or clinic who saw each patient most often. The researchers used a six‑step process that relied on provider specialties, medical codes, and adjustments for hospital stays and extra visits.

The team used South Carolina Medicaid data from pregnancies that resulted in live births between 2016 and 2021. After removing a small number of cases that could not be analyzed, the final dataset included more than one million prenatal care visits from over 90,000 pregnancies. They were able to identify a main prenatal care provider for almost all pregnancies with at least two visits. When they tested their method, they found that having one main provider was linked to lower likelihood of preterm birth and low birth weight.

Overall, the study showed that this new method works well for identifying prenatal care patterns in Medicaid data. The results suggest that having consistent care from the same provider may help improve birth outcomes. The researchers note that future studies can use this method to consistently identify the main PNC provider for pregnant patients, as well as to explore whether having a main provider directly leads to healthier pregnancies, while also considering differences in hospitals and social factors.

Ke9.	Development and Validation of an Algorithm to Identify Prenatal Care in Administrative Data: Predictive Validity for Adverse Birth Outcomes. Deng S, Barabell G, Bennett KJ. Health Serv Res. 2026 Feb;61(1):e70063. doi: 10.1111/1475-6773.70063. Epub 2025 Oct 28. PMID: 41151844