Posted on 11/28/2012 3:46:44 PM PST by Seizethecarp
Dear Patient,
Going into the coming year, I have made a difficult but necessary determination that I will no longer be a Medicare provider. This will go into effect as of January 1, 2013. My decision is directly related to the continuing Medicare cuts and cumbersome requirements that Medicare has put into place. Regretfully, it is no longer feasible for us to participate with Medicare.
My Wife has many of the same disorders. Her primary medication is no longer covered by her current insurance. We had to switch her insurance and now the premium is three times what it was before.
We got a letter from my endocrinologist yesterday. He decided it was time to leave the US to be with his family. In Syria.
You know it’s bad when a doctor thinks he’s better off in Syria than in the US.
He didn’t give his reasons so who knows why he decided this, but I remember back to about 3 years ago when he told me I should stop getting depressed over “politics” because the world is a good place, the future is bright, and I should just be happy and thankful for what I have.
Nobody but us kooks were willing to see what was going to happen. Vindication is supposed to feel good, but this doesn’t feel good at all. I wish we had all been wrong when we said we saw this coming.
I hope that if it’s an old drug that it’s cheaper and that you may even be able to order it online or something. Make sure you at least get ALL your records from this doc —
Shouldn’t be too hard to at least get another provider to at least write an RX for the drug, esp if you tell them it’s been helpful ....docs/NP’s will usually give you what you want if you can demonstrate there have been no ill effects or allergies to it. Good luck!
Thank you and blessings to you, too!
“Find 100 ways”” is my motto! After all, in addition to loving her very much, she is a retired RN and I have to get her back into shape so she take care of me with my progressive neurological condition (orthostatic intolerance and ME/CFS) as I appear to be getting worse these days!
She is already back in the church choir, Christmas Cantata and secular holiday chorus...and therefore she is “warbling” around the house practicing, which makes my day!
Eggsackly. The whole obamacare fiasco is but a transitional plan designed to force the exact outcome you idfentify. Always recall that Obama has committed himself to government- only healthcare. Everything he and his plan does is designed to advance that end.
Some trials come and go. Some come and stay and then get worse, but we must find and seek the strength to persevere.
It helps to be really stubborn! Also, to have a good sense of humor, when appropriate.
“”has no quarantee of being able to find another in or out of her plan that will take Medicare as primary.””
Was she on ORIGINAL Medicare? Can’t she get a Medicare Advantage plan before the enrollment ends on 12/7/12?
Medicare is not PRIMARY if you have a Medicare Advantage plan. I never give my medicare card to doctors - only the MA one.
But MDs were losing money on Medicare anyway, so they are being driven out of business taking either one. They can't cost-shift the losses to those on corporate insurance plans and private payers without huge price increases on top to already huge increases.
Several friends are MDs. (Yes, I was the stupid one of our force some.)
We live in Mass.
None of them have taken Medicare sine Romneycare was put in place. At the time the state would come in and arbitrarily change reimbursement rules. So they dropped several hundred clients from their practice. They were replaced in two months. And the waiting room does not look like a cross between a Hungarian Bazaar and a Botswanian Bus stop.
A good look at your world under Obamacare.
“Would it be feasible to stay a non-medicare patient of this doctor with only a visit every other or every third month, so that the cost wouldn’t be unbearable, but it would allow him to prescribe the drug for her?”
That is the plan!
Between her risk of Alzheimer's and my neurological condition, that is why we entered into a three-tier retirement community with Alzheimer's care on-site at the age of 58 five years ago.
He was willing to work collaboratively with me to help her and was even willing to point out himself that it was I who had suggested the Anafranil after I scoured the Internet for OCD treatments. For the past two months I had been faxing him twice a week a daily diary of my wife's ever-changing symptoms, and he welcomed it and read them free of charge. He also would give her up to an hour (when he can only charge for 20 minutes) if she was the last appointment of the day looking for ways to help her. Now there is no need for the daily diary.
On discharge from her first of three hospitalizations this year the treating MD gave her a Dx of schizoaffective disorder (bipolar type), which can phase in and phase out on an unpredictable schedule. I am keeping my fingers crossed hoping that she "only" has bipolar with psychotic features, a very similar condition, but one that is more likely to be able to be managed successfully than schizoaffective.
“My wife’s mom died with Alzheimer’s so we know what that is like and also that my wife has a 50% chance of having it.”
I don’t think they have determined that Alzheimer’s is genetic. Where did you hear this?
My dad had it and he had eight kids and none of them got it. Just saying...
A couple of her meds give her more appetite that she is comfortable with and because she is very conscious of keeping her weight down (she is all of 125 lbs at 5'2”) she has been complaining of being a bit hungry, but nothing serious so far. Thank goodness she doesn't struggle with weight.
Dear leader seems to be of the opinion that people don’t have brains of their own and always seek ways to alleviate hardships brought on by political stupidity. He and his useful idiots are in for a rude awakening.
Unfortunately, knowing how little the government likes admitting it’s wrong, so are the rest of us. Mark my words, Directive 10-289 is very close.
Five years ago, just before I moved from Plano TX to Fort Myers FL, my family practice MD dumped me and my wife from his practice because we were on Medicare, so this has been going on for some time. We had been with him for eight years! Then when we got to Fort Myers, our first MD said we might be the last ones into his practice with Medicare.
As a shrink who deals mostly with the seriously ill, I understand the bind you and your wife are now in. I’m sorry I don’t know anyone down your way to suggest you see.
I still see Medicare, but I’m highly selective for new Medicare patients now. The cases are usually medically complex and therefore very time consuming in the elderly, and the reimbursement rates for most docs merely cover overhead - at best. At worst, they loose money seeing such patients.
I still do TriCare as a patriotic gesture, but it’s about the same or worse, and with a recent switch to a new managed care company that’s requiring really obnoxious re-credentialling hassles, I may drop that April 1st.
The best deals for shrinks are to do locum tenens, and, as care deteriorates overall, those lucrative rates may even increase since fewer and fewer docs go into the specialty, and demand is constant or growing. VA and state hospital jobs are another option for those with a government employee career goal and/or marginal skills.
Anyway, I’ll shut up. Mine is not a specialty that gets much respect on FR anyway, and I’ll just open myself up more for the usual crap if I ramble on. But I feel for you and you wife, and I hope she finds good care.
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