Posted on 06/25/2015 3:28:19 PM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
Dr. Gary Dee figured the state’s fiscal troubles would lead radiologists like him to face a cut in their Medicaid payment rates. But he wasn’t anticipating the 42.5 percent cut Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s administration imposed this spring.
Now, Dee’s private practice has stopped taking new Medicaid patients.
“The reimbursement is to the point where we can’t take care of these patients. They’re going to lose access,” said Dee, president of MidState Radiology Associates in Meriden.
The result is that it could become harder for the more than 725,000 state residents with Medicaid to find specialists to treat them, undermining the effectiveness of the expansion of Medicaid coverage that took place as part of the federal health law.
“Cutting rates inevitably means fewer providers participating, and fewer providers participating, if we continue with this trend, can make the Medicaid expansion a hollow expansion,” said Sheldon Toubman, an attorney with the New Haven Legal Assistance Association. “Because although on paper they have good coverage in terms of benefits, and no cost-sharing obligations, in reality, they can’t find specialists willing to see them.”
(Excerpt) Read more at ctmirror.org ...
Down the road....maybe quite a ways....All doctors will be Federal Employees...with government guide lines...aka...death panels.
Not that far down the road IMO.
well... the majority of them voted for it, NOW EAT IT!!!
Medicaid was a perversion from the very start, because it tried to institutionalize and mandate charity by the national government (no longer call it federal, because it isn’t).
And, as H.L. Mencken observed, “When man ‘A’ takes from man ‘B’ to reward man ‘C’, then man ‘A’ is a S.O.B.”
In any even, the fastest way to restore order to both Medicaid and Medicare is to make the money for both as bloc grants to the states, for them to decide how to use. And once that years’ bloc grant is exhausted, any additional money must come from the state, if it so chooses.
As things are now, costs will continue to rise, and benefits to shrink, until the programs would consume our entire budget and do nothing at all.
I didn't expect that it would be possible to supply more health care at a lower price while doing nothing about increasing the supply of people supplying the health care.
Next, the people supplying the health care will be working for DMV? That should work out really well.
(Tucked deeply into the bill that nobody read is a provision for concierge care practices. Really.)
>>As things are now, costs will continue to rise, and benefits to shrink, until the programs would consume our entire budget and do nothing at all.
They will buy your pain pills, as Obama indicated. Morphine tablets can be had for mere pennies. With a little phenobarbital and some mirtazepam, you’ll go out with a blissful, if confused, smile on your face.
Such is the “charity” of the state.
Exactly. There are precious few doctors right now that take new Medicaid patients. And none that I know that take it exclusively.
They simply CAN'T.
It's literally a money LOSING proposition.
You can't pay the bills when your services are paid pennies on the dollar for what they are worth.
The ACA seems to rule out any meaningful state ‘administration’.
The most likely outcome is for the states to be required to quit balancing their budgets. That can probably be done by a simple Federal law (not sure).
From the article: “The reimbursement is to the point where we can’t take care of these patients. They’re going to lose access,” said Dee, president of MidState Radiology Associates in Meriden.
Oh, that will only be a temporary hiatus on taking new Medicaid patients. Not too long from now, Zero and 0bamunists will simply decree that doctors will be prohibited from denying treatment, and all will be fine in the Progressive Utopia. You’ll be able to go to any doctor you choose.
Still mulling whether this needs a sarc tag...
But they CAN move their office practices to locations where Medicaid patients will find it difficult to travel. There is more than one way to skin a gov't bureaucrat -- and the health professions have been out-thinking the gov't bureaucrats for decades now.
“... the health professions have been out-thinking the gov’t bureaucrats for decades now.”
It’s not like that’s a hard thing to do!
There are precious few doctors right now that take new Medicaid patients.”
UBH, the mental health part of UHC, negotiated a contract with the State of Texas that pays mental health providers a whole lot more than the same procedures pay for standard medicaid. Providers who accept these patients make out like a bandit. Has to cost the state of Texas a LOT of money, particularly since we’re full to the gills with illegal Mexicans who have this type of Medicaid coverage.
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