Medicare Deadline looming for Doctors
We are only weeks away from the first major victim to be consumed by the tsunami called Obamacare.
In the two thousand pages was a landslide of taxation, regulation and confusion all under the disguise to “fix” health care and guarantee coverage. I predict the results will certainly not live up to the hype.
So, the pay cut, which isn’t really a salary cut but a cut in revenue for doctor is effective June 1st. This is from a Long-Term Care Newsletter I still receive:
The countdown begins again. Only two weeks remain until a 21% pay cut for Medicare physicians takes effect, and lawmakers once again are debating between a temporary and a permanent fix to the problem.
Physicians who treat Medicare patients will on June 1 see a 21% reduction in their reimbursement rates. The cuts were scheduled to take place twice this year, but temporary holds on claims processing from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services effectively stopped them.
This is from Dr. Chris Rangel: “The stated purpose of such a misguided bill is to try to decrease health care costs for small businesses, but all it does is show how little the sponsors of these bills understand medical economics. These bills make no distinction between primary care providers who are in the best position to decrease costs and specialists who tend to increase costs. Both are penalized equally. Nor do these bills require private insurers to pass on savings to employers. The end result is likely to be a net loss of physicians to nearby states and many who join the increasing ranks of physicians who have cash only practices.”
CNN Money begins their story:
For the fourth time this year, doctors face a potential huge cut in the fees that the government pays them to treat Medicare patients.
Fourth cut….21% – wow.
Wonder how what consequences there will be? For every action there is an equal an opposite reaction.
For example: while the government can force doctors to see Medicare patients controlling their licensing procedures, physicians may decide to see fewer and fewer Medicare patients.
For an area heavy in seniors, some office may have to make cut backs, possibly cut jobs, to account for such a loss in revenue.
Chris Rangel is an internal medicine physician who blogs at RangelMD.com.
http://www.mcknights.com/another-deadline-looms-for-medicare-physician-pay-cut/article/170394/
http://money.cnn.com/2010/05/17/news/economy/doc_fix/
