If the doctors have a Medicare contract, know you have Medicare, and accept cash payment from you, they’ll be in big trouble. That may be a complication come December.
Hmmmmmm, hadn’t thought of that. I’ll need to talk w/ Docs. Thanks for the heads-up.
I know that’s true for Medicaid; is it definitely true for Medicare as well?
I wonder if there will be some work arounds. If a doctor is contracted with Medicare and needs to maintain the contract (to maintain hospital privileges, to take Medicaid or participate in a network to get commercial contracts), an intermediary could contract with the doctor who would provide the service to the Medicare patient as an employee of the intermediary. The intermediary would charge an extra percentage for the service.
But my guess is that this practice will be prohibited if it hasn’t been already.