Michael Burgess (R-Texas) writes on the impending Medicare cuts:
The first principle of sensible physician workforce reform will require Congress to immediately halt any cuts in Medicare physician reimbursement. Allowing these scheduled cuts to go into effect would create a chain reaction in the medical community and diminish the quantity and quality of healthcare available to all Americans and not just Medicare beneficiaries. Congress must also address this in a long-term nature or face future catastrophe because the problem only becomes more expensive if it is allowed to persist. Allowing this situation to smolder will result in fewer physicians accepting Medicare patients, reduced access for beneficiaries, and a constriction of the physician workforce pipeline over a period when demand for medical services is projected to explode. Fewer students will pursue medicine as a career. Even fewer will choose primary care fields within medicine. And all of this will happen while the baby-boom generation begins to grow older and faces more and more medical challenges.
Bravo.
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- The Medicare cuts
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- Charging patients for Medicare cuts
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- Medicare cuts: Let the games begin
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{ 8 comments }
beautifully put by a doctor/politician.
Unfortunately those outside medicine (including almost all the other politicians in washington) have job security by doing nothing, so have no incentive to push for any real change. In fact they may have lobbyists pushing them to maintain the status quo (pharma, device makers, specialty groups, electric wheelchair scams, chirofrauders etc.)
They also underappreciate the magnitude of the medicare sgr formula problem (probably because it isn’t easily understood in a 2-second soundbite), and impending deficiencies in primary care availability.
They will NOT change this mentality until they themselves are geriatric & left only with medicare as their health insurer. Since they give themselves the most flush private commercial coverage our tax dollars can buy, this will NEVER happen. Then when they don’t get re-elected or their terms are up, they become lobbyists & perpetuate the cycle.
kudos to Dr.Burgess, but I think he’s fighting a huge uphill battle that’ll wear him down before any change is made.
Here’s a point to ponder by those opposed to universal health care.
There is no difference in the amount paid for an office visit whether you are 1 or 101 years old. The way we are treating our senior citizens (a mark I rapidly approach myself) is depressing. How many of you in family practice know some other physician who dumps his patients on the street as soon as they hit 65?
I have had to close my practice to new Medicare patients because between Medicaid and Medicare at almost 35% of my practice I frankly cannot afford to see any more. I will continue to ‘graduate’ my patients when they reach 65 and keep them in my practice.
The government has, by separating these individuals into an extremely poor investment pool, made them into medical pariahs.
Medicare is my BEST payor. The worst are Medicaid, Medicare HMO’s, and most private insurance that pays Medicare rates or worse. If you can be paid better than Medicare rates in primary care, you are doing better than I. Medicare is 50% of my practice and I cannot afford not to accept it.
Ok, Anonymous 10:36, but as Medicare payments go down, everything else tracks along with it…not exactly a reason to cheer about Medicare.
I anticipate continued progress toward a crisis in primary care, after which we will import primary care physicians from other countries to meet the demand. So in the future your primary care MD will even less likely than now not speak English as his/her primary language.
“So in the future your primary care MD will even less likely than now not speak English as his/her primary language.”
Ok, Greg P, is this really what you meant to say? Do you realize that although I was born in the USA, I speak English, Spanish, and Russian each and every day in my practice? It would be helpful if I spoke Farsi, Tagalog, Vietnamese, French, Italian, Portuguese, and Mandarin as well. Speaking more languages is the way of the near future.
Anon 1:36, do you live in Los Angeles? Because I live in Omaha, and I’ve gotta tell ya, not speaking Tagalog is putting a real damper on my ability to treat the huge population of Phillipinos here in the real America.
Ok Jose. But there are a lot more patients in Los Angeles than Omaha and THAT is the real tortilla-basket of America!
My best payors are my patients–it makes sense, they are the ones who need the service.
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