RSS FeedMillions of Patients Could Be Turned Away in Medicare Boycott
26 February 2010As the media and blogosphere swirl over the much-anticipated healthcare summit yesterday, a storm is brewing that could affect thousands, perhaps millions of Medicare patients’ access to medical treatment.
According to CNN.com, many physicians are threatening to refuse to treat Medicare patients if Monday’s reimbursement cut isn’t prevented. Each year cuts are slated to be imposed, but have been repealed or postponed at the last minute in seven of the past eight years, according to the report.
Monday, unless Congress acts before then, Medicare reimbursements to physicians will be cut by 21%. Many physicians already lose money or break even on Medicare patients, and for those doctors who see a significant amount of Medicare patients, the financial viability of their practices could be significantly threatened.
Many physicians feel their hands are tied – they must stop seeing Medicare patients, or they will go out of business, which would leave even more patients without care. Physicians feel that turning away Medicare patients is their only option, the lesser of two evils so to speak.
The article quotes James Rohack, president of the AMA. According to Rohack, the AMA is providing its members (over 250,000 physicians) with advice on thier options including tips on how to help their Medicare patients find other doctors.
How many patients could this affect? According to the report, 43 million people benefit from Medicare to some degree. It’s interesting that this number is so close to the number of uninsured patients everyone has devoted so much time to in health reform debates, yet not much time seems to be devoted to this ominous Medicare situation. Hopefully Congress will take action in the next few hours.
Read the full report on CNN.com
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April 5th, 2012 at 9:53 pm
[...] discussed in a previous DhD post, thousands of physicians were preparing to stop seeing Medicare patients if the scheduled March 1 [...]