Physicians who do not see Medicare and Medicaid patients
May 7th, 2009 | by Brian Schwartz |Medical internist and Professor of Medicine Mark Siegel in the Wall Street Journal:
Here’s something that has gotten lost in the drive to institute universal health insurance: Health insurance doesn’t automatically lead to health care. And with more and more doctors dropping out of one insurance plan or another, especially government plans, there is no guarantee that you will be able to see a physician no matter what coverage you have.
Consider that the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission reported in 2008 that 28% of Medicare beneficiaries looking for a primary care physician had trouble finding one, up from 24% the year before. …
I’ve had several new Medicare patients come to my office in the last few months with multiple diseases and long lists of medications simply because their longtime provider — who they liked — abruptly stopped taking Medicare. …
The problem is even worse with Medicaid. A 2005 Community Tracking Physician survey showed that only 50% of physicians accept this insurance. I am now one of the ones who doesn’t take it. I realized a few years ago that it wasn’t worth the money to file the paperwork for the $25 or less that I received for an office visit.
Read the whole piece here.
tags: coverage is not care, Medicaid, Medicare, Medicare access
