Posted on 01/17/2010 1:54:37 PM PST by SeekAndFind
Two weeks ago the Mayo Clinic shocked the nation when it closed the doors of one of its Arizona clinics to patients on Medicare. Just this past June President Obama himself praised Mayo as a model of medical efficiency noting that Mayo gives “the highest quality care at costs well below the national norm.” If Mayo feels compelled to walk away from this government-run program, others will surely follow. The nation must understand why.
Doctors are leaving Medicare for two reasons: one obvious, the other more concealed.
The first is simple—the math:
1) For the past decade Medicare consistently paid physicians 20% less than traditional insurance companies for identical service.
2) On January 1, 2010 Washington made hidden cuts to Medicare by altering its billing codes.
3) Medicare will cut physician reimbursement by another 21% on March 1. The CBO said this cut must take place if the Senate healthcare bill was to “reduced the deficit.”
4) Even more, Congress pledged to cut Medicare by yet another $500 billion. Again, the CBO said this additional cut must take place if the Senate healthcare bill was to “reduced the deficit.” Many physicians were operating at a loss even before this series of massive cuts. In 2008, Mayo Clinic posted an $840 million loss in caring for Medicare patients. No businesses can survive when patient care expenses exceed revenue.
The second is more ominous—Washington’s increasingly abusive posture toward physicians. President Obama reflected this attitude last summer. On national television, he stated as fact a surgeon is paid between $30,000 and $50,000 for amputating a patient’s foot.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Given massive federal deficits, Washington now faces increasing pressure to cut Medicare spending. One way to do this is to intimidate physicians into under-billing. To do this Washington intends to spend tax payer dollars to ramp up physician audits using Recovery Audit Contractors (RAC audits) to randomly investigate private physician’s Medicare billing.
‘Hidden fee’: As of Dec 14, Medicare will only pay for 18 visits to a chiropractor - no maintenance is covered.
Bummer can't even point out what's "busted" so how in blue blazes can he possibly "fix" it?
Congress continues to expand Medicare and Medicaid Benefits without expanding the taxes to pay for the additional services.
Politicians being corrupt do not want to raise taxes for fear of being voted out of office.
The result is the private insurance market is billed more for doctor services to pay for what medicare does not pay.
Now the Democrats want to make it even worse by cutting Medicare payments to doctors even more.
I suspect that there is a purposeful campaign to crash the banking industry, crash the healthcare industry, have union benefits crash large corporations, cut off water to farmers to crash farming. Then they will say capitalism has failed and we must “change” to something different. No one can be so stupid as to do what they are doing and think it will do anything except harm.
We could have reduced the deficit by NOT you not
flying all over the world with your families and spending
our money, you hypocrites or by giving your favorite
donators/backers/brownnoses/crooks money for one reason or another.
Spend, spend, spend and Spin, spin, spin.
Yeah, it doesn’t have to be busted, only you have to ‘think’ it’s busted.
The bottom line is that Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security are dead already, Jim. The only difference in the future will be how we get from here, with unsustainable largesse programs, to there, with the national government getting out of the largesse business.
There is no choice involved. Tinkerbell will not live if all the children clap their hands. The big three largesse programs will not live even if everyone who paid money into them really, truly wants something back for their money.
Sorry, that money was spent, often decades ago. The cupboard is bare.
Those people who believed they were going to get their money back are going to be screwed, shafted. But they were the ones who kept voting for the honey-covered, if forked tongued devils, when they were young, dumb and healthy.
Now that they are old and infirm, they get to take it in the shorts.
There is a provision in the health care bill that will forbid doctors from treating patients for a fee.
Congress could make medical expenses tax deductible from the first dollar for this group.
When American physicians ditched the Hippocratic Oath, they basically announced to the world that their bottom line was money. As long as the medical profession is willing to accept abortionists as fellow professionals, they brand themselves as mercenaries -- ready for a fee to heal, ready for a fee to kill.
After more than 30 million slaughtered innocents, it looks like some chickens are coming home to roost.
What do we expect from a government that honestly believes it can make a day longer by forcing us to change our clocks?
It is impossible NOW to find physicians willing to see new Medicare cases in some places {Anchorage, Alaska, eg) and increasing hard in many other places.
By the way the fo profit crooked bounty hunters includes a sleezy company owned by Diane Feinstein of California.
It is a shame that some medical PAC set up by doctors who leave Medicare is not running advertising to get out that message. Leaving in quiet is like a tree falling in the forest - if nobody hears it.
They are intimidating doctors to under-bill for their services and doctors think this will keep them safe from a RAC audit. In the mean time, they aren't being accurately reimbursed for the level of service they are providing.
As long as the medical profession is willing to accept abortionists as fellow professionals, they brand themselves as mercenaries -- ready for a fee to heal, ready for a fee to kill. After more than 30 million slaughtered innocents, it looks like some chickens are coming home to roost.
This comment is so absurd, I don't even know where to begin. Because some physicians perform abortions all doctors should take a pay cut from Medicare? It IS a pay cut, plain and simple. The population of seniors is growing so it stands to reason that Medicare will be a large percentage of their reimbursement. This pay cut will keep on growing as the baby-boomers age. Is that fair to our doctors? People who have given as much as 15 years of their life to their training?
As with most professions, politicians come to mind, there are good doctors as well as bad. I have no idea where you got the idea they "ditched the Hippocratic Oath" (your words). While I agree that abortion is wrong, I also think that while it is legal, it should be safe. It should be regulated, clinics should undergo JCAHO (joint commission on accreditation of healthcare organizations) audits the same as hospitals. The abortions should be performed by a qualified health professional subject to the same education standards and scrutiny as their counterparts in other fields of medicine.
Hopefully in the future we won't need doctors who know how to perform an abortion, but the alternative to not having it done safely is a step backwards of 50-100 years in medicine.
Excuse me. I am an evangelical pro life mother who happens to be a physician. I am not a mercenary - I could make a much better and certainly more comfortable living in the corporate world. I am not a mercenary, and am tired of having my integrity smeared by people who would run away screaming if they tried to spend a week in my shoes let alone a longer period of time.
Yes, I get paid (sort of) for what I do. To make the amount I do (which is less than other professionals I know and even the guy who sanded my deck) I paid for 8 years of post high school education. I then worked for 3 years in residency approximately 110 hours a week for a princely 23k/yr - with student loans to repay. Now that I make the “big” bucks, I work nights, weekends, holidays, my kids soccer games and dance recitals, etc, all for patients and families who are increasingly ungrateful and demanding. Then to top it of I get a smart mouth like you pontificating that I deserve the cuts in pay because I am a mercenary.
Thanks! You are making my decision to retire early much easier. Good luck with the foreign medical graduate mercenaries and nonphysician providers that will be taking care of you and yours after the rest of us are driven out of the field.
Bummer could have any organ, limb, spongehead or wart amputated at no expense. Why would he care about anyone else.
Here here! Some folks are just ignorant with their class warfare crap.
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