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Posted on 08/05/2014 10:55:57 AM PDT by Red Badger
Obamacare plans have shrunk payments to physicians so much that some doctors say they won’t be able to afford to accept Obamacare coverage, NPR reports.
Many of the eight million sign-ups in Obamacare exchanges nationwide already face more limited choices for physicians and hospitals than those in the private insurance market. But with low physician reimbursement rates, the problem could get even worse.
For a typical quick patient visit, Dr. Doug Gerard, a Connecticut internist, told NPR a private insurer would pay $100 while Medicare would pay around $80. But Obamacare plans are more likely to pay closer to $80, which Gerard says is unsustainable for his practice.
“I cannot accept a plan [in which] potentially commercial-type reimbursement rates were now going to be reimbursed at Medicare rates,” Dr. Gerard told NPR. ”You have to maintain a certain mix in private practice between the low reimbursers and the high reimbursers to be able to keep the lights on.”
Narrow networks have become a hallmark of many Obamacare exchange plans, as one of few options left to insurance companies that allows them to save money by lowering reimbursement rates and covering fewer providers. In the health-care law’s first year, 70 percent of all Obamacare plan networks were either narrow or ultra-narrow, according to an analysis from consulting firm McKinsey.
But doctors are feeling even more financial pressure due to the changes and many believe there’s a risk that Obamacare insurance will go the way of Medicaid, where patients still struggle to find a doctor after low reimbursement rates led many physicians to stop accepting it.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailycaller.com ...
FOXNEWS has a program about ObamaCare coming up sometime this week...
in their ad a member of the New Hampshire Legislature is complaining that she and her female partner don’t need birth control and shouldn’t have to pay for it...
LOL
All my providers delegate work same as always, no change.
Tying “health care” to employment was a sad artifact of union settlements made during WW2.
Anything that separates the payer from the user will increase demand and prices.
Doctors pass along a huge lawyer tax.
The marxist degenerate DEMONCRAT lawyers didn’t put a single word about Tort Reform into the OBAMACARE Dictate.
LAWYERS HAVE A LICENSE TO STEAL!
LAWYERS ARE MORE DANGEROUS THAN MUSLIMS AND MUST BE DEALT WITH.
Pass it on.
“You want to help people, don’t you?”
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
The next time a liberal tries that on me I think I am going to reply, “I think helping people is wonderful, so what do you want to do for me?” In my experience they always want to be on the receiving end of the largesse. Any giving most of them do is very, very minimal at best.
I have a fair idea of where the cost comes from but I think it is still astounding that we have reached a point where eighty dollars for an office visit is not worth the doctor’s trouble. That is sixteen times what I used to pay in the sixties and back then no one ever said it wasn’t enough. I recall having a tooth pulled in 1970 and paying twelve dollars which was far too much according to one of my coworkers, he said he could have sent me to a dentist who would do it for eight. Of course at the time I was driving a 1968 model luxury automobile that cost me about $3500. new. I was earning around $150. a week and had plenty of money, living a single man lifestyle you could not live on $1500 a week now and maybe not on $2000 a week.
They are on borrowed time.
You’re imagining things or gullible.
My knowledge is based on several small groups of physicians who are struggling with the new medicare system. They are not having an easy time. About 25% of the Drs here in sw Fl have left their practices. Many are struggling with gov requirements that reduce their ability to see patients and are receiving lower payments. They are clear that the fed plan is to force them into low paying salaried positions in gov groups.
My knowledge is based on several small groups of physicians who are struggling with the new medicare system. They are not having an easy time. About 25% of the Drs here in sw Fl have left their practices. Many are struggling with gov requirements that reduce their ability to see patients and are receiving lower payments. They are clear that the fed plan is to force them into low paying salaried positions in gov groups.
No argument with any of that. But the contention in your earlier comment was not correct.
“If you think of all the staff the doctor must pay, nurses, clerks, house maintenance and the like, plus the cost of malpractice insurance, equipment and supplies, building and office space lease or mortgage, and its insurance, the costs become more clear................”
Did they practice in the street in the 50s ?
Government contractor insurance, pension retirement money piped into Government contractor insurance right into the Government Contractor Stock Market.
My c\ontention was not a contention. It was a fact reported to me by my physician.
“Tying “health care” to employment was a sad artifact of union settlements made during WW2.”
Only after the federal government decreed a wage cap.
~Ronald Reagan
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