Mayo Clinic Faulted for Limiting Medicare Patients

washingtonpost.com ^ | Oct. 13, 2009 | Alec MacGillis

[Free ThinkerNY]

The renowned Mayo Clinic is no longer accepting some Medicare and Medicaid patients, raising new questions about whether it is too selective to serve as a model for health-care reform.

The White House has repeatedly held up for praise Mayo and other medical centers, many of which are in the Upper Midwest, that perform well in Dartmouth College rankings showing wide disparities in how much hospitals spend on Medicare patients.

The model centers have capitalized on their status to insert into health-care legislation provisions that would result in higher Medicare payments for hospitals that do well on the Dartmouth rankings while punishing those elsewhere -- mostly, big cities and the South -- that spend the most per Medicare patient.

But some skeptics -- health-care analysts as well as politicians and medical officials in states that would be hurt by Mayo's proposals -- argue that low Medicare spending by Mayo and others is driven by the lack of diversity and poverty in their patient population. They say Mayo's low-cost image is belied by the high rates it charges insurers and private payers.

Mayo announced late last week that its flagship facility in Rochester, Minn., will no longer accept Medicaid patients from Nebraska and Montana. The clinic draws patients from across the Midwest and West, but it will now accept Medicaid recipients only from Minnesota and the four states that border it. As it is, 5 percent of Mayo's patients in Rochester are on Medicaid, well below the average for other big teaching hospitals, and below the 29 percent rate at the other hospital in town.

Mayo officials said Monday it would look for other hospitals to take care of the 50 patients from Montana and Nebraska who have come to the hospital at least twice in the past two years.

[Brilliant]

No, it’s not too selective. It just doesn’t want to mess with government health care.

[Cyman]

Just like I predicted when they were announced as the “model” for health care delivery, those Dr Labcoat prima donnas mofo’s

[PLMerite]

“...those Dr Labcoat prima donnas mofo’s”

You have a way with words and I totally agree.

[oldironsides]

Got an email from MD in Chicago today with link to protest the health care legislation. The list had numerous docs on it. I do not believe doctors want to become involved with government nutballs. Many remember what it was like to be drafted and controlled by Democrat congress. They hated it

[Mike Darancette]

Once there is a public option will doctors and hospitals be forced to accept that insurance?

[hinckley buzzard]

Mayo has thousands of prosperous private payers annually from all over the world but especially Canada, patients whose ample cash payments skew the whole picture. Why take a medicaid patient for peanuts when you can score a big payment of cash on the barrelhead for the same bed?

[hinckley buzzard]

The clinic draws patients from across the Midwest and West, but it will now accept Medicaid recipients only from Minnesota and the four states that border it.

The omission of "Canada" from this market area is misleading, dishonest, and intentional.

[ridesthemiles]

Delays in payments for Medicare and Medicaid to providers has been rampant for years, but with NObama in charge, it has gotten much worse.

This is the tip of the iceberg, IMO.

[Logophile]

Mayo officials said Monday that the two moves were "business decisions" that had grown out of longstanding concerns about what it sees as underpayment by Medicare and Medicaid.

[Daisyjane69]

They are not alone.

Cleveland Clinic (in Ohio) does not accept Medicare. Their Florida affiliate does, however.

http://my.clevelandclinic.org/patients/billing_legal/insurance/default.aspx

http://my.clevelandclinic.org/fla_old/weston/insurance.aspx