Posted on 04/02/2010 2:44:33 PM PDT by STARWISE
It’s no joke for doctors that today marks the day that Medicare’s 21% reimbursement pay cuts were to go into effect.
Congress left for its Easter recess without voting to delay the scheduled April 1 start of lower payments to docs. The agency that oversees Medicare has effectively delayed the cuts by deciding not to pay claims for the first 10 business days in April. When Congress returns, it’s still expected to adopt another law to delay the cuts for longer, as it has done annually for years now.
So what does the delay in paying claims mean for doctors?
In the short-term, their cash flow shouldn’t be disrupted much, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid. Typically claims are paid no sooner than 14 calendar days anyway, so doctors shouldn’t see a dip in their income unless Congress fails to act with a new delay in the next two weeks, the agency says.
But the long-standing threat of Medicare cuts are weighing on doctors, say medical societies.
“It’s tough,” Andrew LaMar, spokesman for the California Medical Association, told the Health Blog. “Imagine if every month you didn’t know what your paycheck is going to be.”
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.wsj.com ...
...PING!
Very bad .. an evil wind is blowing.
There’s a bit of “hate speech” getting ready to flow from my keyboard...
$*%^&#$ ^(*$#@* gov#$%^$nt!!!!!!!!
“It’s tough,” Andrew LaMar, spokesman for the California Medical Association, told the Health Blog. “Imagine if every month you didn’t know what your paycheck is going to be.”
Well, being self-employed, I deal with that all the time! Or, for the unemployed - they would be happy with any paycheck.
I think a better statement would have been “Imagine if every month you didn’t know what the government would declare your wage to be?” (Didn’t FDR do that for every single industry and service?)
How about the docs give IUO’s to their employees, along with a note that NObama is holding up reimbursements???
EVIL.
Check out “The Great Reneger” - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdKmc9aBELM
I have a framed payment from medicare for services rendered.
Amount=11cents
That is what’s coming and it’s not good.
Medicare is the largest Insurance plan around and if, as Barry says, size would result in greater efficiency and buying power, then Medicare would not be the shining example I would point to as a prototype.
They have 50% more denial rates
Their payments to doctors take 60% longer than private insurance.
They have 50% more paperwork involved.
They have a standard of care objective and that is all they provide.
They have less procedure alternatives
They absolutely require an escalation of specialist to specialist to specialist and so on.
2nd and 3rd opinions are not renumerated.
They pay about 50% less than private insurance
And then you have all the losers of life who think everyone owes them. They cry with the Faux indignation that anyone would make a profit off their healthcare.
To which I say “I understand and those are valid issues”
So let me ask you this; who in the supply chain for your care should take less money home every month.
I will let you choose:
The Phone Company that provides Internet access so your records, x-rays, MRI’s, etc can be transferred around the world for convenience and so other specialists can interpret the results?
How about the electric company that lights the doctors office, keeps the factory running that make artificial parts, prosthetics or drugs to give you a quality of life you accept or keep you alive. Heck they even provide power to the operating room with $million$ of Dollar$ in equipment to provide you with care.
Should the company that makes the diagnostic and monitoring machines be forced to take less money for their services or equipment?
Should the company that makes software to run these machines take less money?
Shold the company that makes software that enables your records to always be available take less money.
Should the janitor that keeps the rooms clean and sanitary, in the hospital take less money home?
How about the company that makes alcohol and other antiseptics?
And the company that makes soap to wash your hands and the hands of hospital staff and healthcare providers?
What of the company that makes all that paper? You know the paper towels, tampons, gauge, toilet tissue, charts and records? They just cut less trees this year?
How about water? That’s right, does the water company that flushes away your waste and blood products in a hospital, ambulance or doctors office take less money this year, for you?
How about the company that makes and stores blood, so your envious ass can be provided with a transfusion to keep your blood pressure up, your heart pumping and well.... Keep you alive? Less money?
How about the food service company that keeps the staff, guests and patients feed so there is less reason to go off site and bring it back? I might agree with you here, since I am not sure they actually serve food but, something they call food. Still real people work 8 hours a day making it or whatever it is.
What of the company that makes stents so your blood platlets won’t come off in your artery and go to heart causing an aortic interruption. You know the kind where your heart stops pumping.
The fireman, the policeman, the EMT, the ambulance driver
- Choose; who takes less money this year?
For all the corporation above, I would suggest you look at your choices for who takes less money home this year and who you impoverish because you think no one should make money off your healthcare.
There are real people, with real bills and families working at these “faceless” companies.
Tell me, which family do you damn to an alternative life than the one they lead now and force them into poverty.
Who has to lose their home?
Who has to take a bus everyday?
Who can no longer afford their own healthcare or of their children.
Who do you demand, you selfish, self serving entitled, deluded moron, who do you demand make less to serve you and your utopia that everyone bow, kiss your ring finger and serve you.
Who!?
At over 4 mnutes, too long for a campaign ad, but it nails the SOB.
Thanks for linking it here.
Let's take the example of something like diabetes, one of, uh, aOne of many blatant Obama lies. In reality, Medicare reimbursement for those evil physicians is $800-$1000, inclusive of all post-op visits for 90 days, before the 21% Medicare decrease.
disease that's skyrocketing, partly because of obesity, partly
because it's not treated as effectively as it could be. Right now if
we paid a family -- if a family care physician works with his or her
patient to help them lose weight, modify diet, monitors whether
they're taking their medications in a timely fashion, they might
get reimbursed a pittance. But if that same diabetic ends up
getting their foot amputated, that's $30,000, $40,000, $50,000...
immediately the surgeon is reimbursed.--Barack Obama 8/11/2009
If you go to a New York ER with a heart attack, NY Medicaid will pay the greedy ER doctor $17.00.
That pretty much sums up the way I feel when my Doctor sees me.
Even before Obama Care passed, I was ever so grateful I could secure an appt. considering what the Doctor was reimbursed. Now this? God help us.
Just breathtaking tyranny and thuggery
from the overlord. God, help us when
we lose the tens of thousands of doctors,
who worked so hard for those extra 4-8
years to achieve excellence in the fields
we need so badly and that set America apart
as the premier advanced medical community.
Who will care for us?
And who will care for all those entitled
redistributed wealth recipients on whom
-0 wants so much to lavish his love?
Now, more than ever ... we’ll have to be
the savvy keepers of our own health as much
as humanly possible .. and pray.
Not every profession has to pay the outrageous malpractice insurance rates that docs do.
It’s what is coming. I’m on Medicare part B and Tricare For Life, the retired over 65 Military’s secondary health ins. I had to jump through several hoops, including putting my Senator on their tails to get permission to have the name brand Synthroid to treat my under active thyroid, instead of the generic form...makes ulcers in my mouth (I wear a partial plate) and your hair to fall out. The generic is not absorbed as well by your body, you have to be tested 3-4 times a year to make sure if it is working. Where on the name brand you only need testing 2 times a year. There is only a few cents difference in the drugs pricing. The extra testing eats up any cost savings.
...Medicare's 21% reimbursement pay cuts were to go into effect. Congress left for its Easter recess without voting to delay the scheduled April 1 start of lower payments to docs.
A lot of doctors and pharmacies are going to try and drop Medicare but the new healthcare law forces states to try and stop that from happening.
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