Not good. Only going to get worse with Obamacare:
Texas doctors fed up with Medicare’s declining reimbursements dropped out of the government-funded program for the elderly in record numbers in 2010, according to new data.
One hundred and seventy-two doctors formally ended involvement with Medicare last year, the most yet in a surge of “opt-outs” that has claimed more than 450 Texas doctors since 2008. Before 2007, the number averaged a handful a year.
“Those numbers show the growth in opt-outs is definitely a trend and that the system is dysfunctional,” said Dr. Susan Rudd Bailey, president of the Texas Medical Association, the state’s largest organization of doctors. “It’s a real concern that more doctors are being forced out of the system every year.”
Since 2001, Medicare reimbursement has been cut about 20 percent in inflation-adjusted dollars. TMA officials contend those cuts are forcing doctors out of the system.
Medicare is just another mismanaged Government program.
I don’t blame these doctors. They don’t even make enough off of Medicare/Medicade to pay for most of the actual services they perform. Patients do not have the right to someone else’s labor.
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Robbie, I had a long conversation with my own personal “family” doctor over this issue. Here is part of the inequality that runs rampant in Medicare.
My doctor, who is in a small town, charges $60 per office visit, $90 for a complete physical. Now, if he was in Austin, Dallas or any major city, Medicare would cover up to $65 per office visit. Instead, because he is in a small town, he is only reimbursed at $48.00, $17 per visit less than big city doctors.
He told me that his patients who are seniors also require more time than say, treating a 12 year old with a cold. And seniors tend to abuse the system (ever sat with a bunch of over 70 crowd and listened to them talk about their aches and pains?), some of his seniors showing up at his office almost every weeks with imaginary ailments. So, five years ago, he stopped accepting new patients that are Medicare “only” patients and who do not have secondary insurance.
I have talked to seniors who have retired to my small town only to have them tell me they can’t find a doctor here and have to drive to Austin to get medical care. Many doctors in my county are not taking new patients, and damn sure are not taking new Medicare patients.