Doctors Bailing Out
The number of physicians who have stopped accepting Medicare has nearly tripled over the last three years.
Source: Wall Street Journal.
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The number of physicians who have stopped accepting Medicare has nearly tripled over the last three years.
Source: Wall Street Journal.
Nearly 13% of doctors opt out of Medicare. An additional number limit the number of new Medicare patients they will accept while other accept no not Medicare patients but continue to treat existing patients. A little-known fact is that primary care doctors who will see Medicare patients often pass them through to specialists without actually treating them.
ObamaCare is going to be a disaster. What do they think happens when demand booms and supply plummets?
Great point… Maybe they think that they will encourage physicians to work more through lower wages and more hours! *sarcasm*
I’m sure they are all getting ready to blame “greedy doctors”… smh.
Supply is not going to plummet. Alarmism is not conducive to anything.
“The number of physicians who have stopped accepting Medicare has nearly tripled over the last three years.”
Supply is plummeting for the poor because
Medicare is the vehicle of ObamaCare. If we continue to pay doctors below market rates, there will always be a shortage of doctors.
Sorry, let me be clear.
The number of physicians accepting Medicare is decreasing. ObamaCare relies on Medicare to expand coverage to the poor. We are adding in tens of millions of new Medicare recipients at the same time that the supply of physicians for those people is declining.
Supply doesn’t need to plummet for it to be a disaster. If demand raises by 20%, then panic will set in and more people will line up, more people will demand more services than they need, because they’re afraid it will go away. Isn’t any different than gas lines after a hurricane.
It just doesn’t make sense for doctors to participate in Medicare
I’m pretty sure that ACA raises Medicare reimbursement rates uniformly to Medicaid levels. This should bring doctors back, but we’ll still have a shortage and public cost will go through the roof.
Docs that opt out can’t come back for 2 years. ACA raises Medicaid rates to parity with Medicare rates, not the other way around. That only applies to primary care. The letter of the law would also be fulfilled if Medicare rates drop to Medicaid rates, a far more likely outcome given the abject lack of funding included.
Opt-out definition:
“As provided in ยง 4507 of the Balanced Budget Act of 1997, a “private contract” is a contract between a Medicare beneficiary and a physician or other practitioner who has “opted out” of Medicare for two years for all covered items and services he or she furnishes to Medicare beneficiaries.
In a private contract, the Medicare beneficiary agrees to give up Medicare payment for services furnished by the physician or practitioner and to pay the physician or practitioner without regard to any limits that would otherwise apply to what the physician or practitioner could charge.”
https://www.novitas-solutions.com/enrollment/optout/
I’m a bit confused by “non-participating”.
This is the best explanation I can find:
http://www.aafp.org/practice-management/regulatory/medicare.html
A participating provider is one that bills Medicare directly for their services. The prescriptions that physician writes for services, equipment and drugs are paid by Medicare.
An opted out provider retains their Medicare provider number. Neither they nor the patient can bill Medicare for their services, but the prescriptions for services, equipment and drugs are paid by Medicare.
A non-participating provider does not have a Medicare number. The amount that they can charge for their services is limited by law. If the prescription that they write requires a Medicare provider ID number, it won’t be paid by Medicare. The patient submits the bill for the non-participating provider to Medicare for reimbursement.
Can they do it under the ACA?