47% of Oahu MDs Refusing New Medicare Patients

[TexasTowelie]

News Release From CROWN CARE, October 23, 2016 (excerpts)

Many of our clients request help in finding a new primary care doctor. We asked Oahu physicians if they accept new patients and found almost a third would not. Even those who would accept were rejecting complicated or elderly patients….

Data analyzed obtained from Oahu primary care practitioners including family practitioners, geriatricians, and internists were tabulated for the following:

463 of the 479 active primary care practices in Oahu were contacted between 2/11/16 and 8/26/16 and questioned about current acceptance of new patients. The remaining 16 MDs were unreachable despite numerous phone calls and messages.

145 (31%) of all primary care MDs sampled were no longer accepting any new patients regardless of insurance coverage. Of these, 7 would consider family and friends of existing patients and 15 would consider taking new patients at some point of time in the future.

246 (53%) of MDs were accepting most new patients including some Medicare. However, 17 of these stated they would only accept certain Medicare plans.

72 (16%) providers were still accepting new patients with non – Medicare insurance only. They limited their new patients to commercial insurers. While most of these stated they would continue to follow their existing Medicare patients, 7 stated they would not follow any Medicare patients at all even if they were in the practice.

Read more: http://www.hawaiifreepress.com/ArticlesMain/tabid/56/ID/18473/Survey-47-of-Oahu-MDs-Refusing-New-Medicare-Patients.aspx

[still_one]

1. A lot of that happens also in Texas. In other words, they only want to accept patients with means

[Travis_0004]

3. Medicare pays less

Doctors for the most part will accept some medicare paitents, but medicare is not what gets the bills paid, so a lot of doctors will cap how many medicare patients they will accept.

[still_one]

4. I understand that, but the point I was making is there are some states like Texas have

more doctors refusing to take new or existing Medicare patients than other states.

Fortunately, the most highly rated Medical facilities in the country, including in Texas do not follow that path

A few years back Medicare did increase the reimbursement rate to the primary care physicians, along with others. Still less than other insurers pay, and is also another reason why doctors and facilities pad their Medicare patient bills because they expect one's supplemental plans to cover part or all that Medicare does not cover.

The major medical centers also have contract prices with insurance companies, so even though a bill may indicate a substantial amount, the actual bill may be considerably less

In many cases, the "accept some medicare patients" would refer to those that have a supplemental plan, especially the higher coverage supplementals, such as a Plan F, backed by a large insurance company such as United HealhCare, Blue Cross, Blue Shied, etc, because they will get a larger payment to take care of services not covered by Medicare A&B.

This has also been an increasing trend, more so in certain sections of the country than others. That is why Single Payer is not without its issues, and has the potential for unintended consequences

Here is an interesting perspective on the situation in Canada:

http://www.pnhp.org/news/2008/february/10_myths_about_canad.php

[Sherman A1]

2. Thus

reinforcing the need for universal health care, taking private insurance out of the equation.