Posted on 06/02/2010 9:52:56 AM PDT by george76
Doctors May Soon Be Forced to Accept Lower Reimbursements for Treating Medicare Patients.
A missed deadline by Congress may mean many of the country's 44 million Medicare patients will have a harder time finding a doctor -- piquing the frustration of many physicians who already care for these patients.
On Friday, the Senate adjourned for its traditional Memorial Day break without eliminating a physician payment cut for treatments to Medicare patients that took effect today, which means that the country's doctors may soon be paid 21.3 percent less to treat Medicare patients.
In a statement issued Friday, Dr. James Rohack, president of the American Medical Association, expressed outrage.
"The Senate has turned its back on seniors," Rohack said in the statement. "Senators are more interested in heading home for the holiday than in preventing a Medicare meltdown for seniors... Already, about one in four Medicare patients looking for a new primary care physician have trouble finding one, and Congressional inaction will make it much worse."
Some doctors anticipate that this threat will force them to change the way they conduct their practices -- and for some, the changes have already begun.
(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.go.com ...
Isnt this the fix the CBO told Obama to remove from the Obama-care bill so they could claim it cuts the deficit? If they pass this it will bring up another opportunity to talk about the Health Reform bill.
While the GOP has certainly made some mistakes, this doctor's anger is misplaced when it comes to Obamacare.
SUCKERS!
Translated:
Expect more delays at Emergency Rooms as seniors are forced there as a treatment of last resort. I wonder how much more expensive it is for the federal Government (US) to treat seniors at the ER then at a doctor visit?
Not for the first time. And certainly not the last time.
“This on-again, off-again, 10-day, two-week, two-month or whatever delay is very much hurting the ability of physicians to run a practice,” Wexler said. “This is no longer a Republican or Democrat issue. Congress and the White House have finally generated bipartisanship. Physicians are equally angry at both parties.”
Notice that most of the doctors quoted in the story work at academic institutions? These physicians have fixed salaries that are not based on productivity (seeing patients and providing treatment). This is the core support among physicians for 0bamacare.
Private practice physicians know exactly who to blame-it’s that evil triumvirate of zero, reid and pelosi. Republicans cannot be blamed for this situation unless you are a delusional liberal. 0bamacare is such a drag on the deficit that it is conceivable that the 21% cut for Medicare doctor’s fees will remain intact.
My then family doc told me he was voting for Obama, claimed to have never voted dem before but was ready for some change - which I promptly gave him by changing family docs. I do not want a stupid person taking care of my family's medical needs.
The Military families and the retirees are screwed too.
Union retiree patients on gold plated insurance still pay good.
I think it was in the neighborhood of 200B.
They had to disavow the memo and say they had no such intention. Sure. They DID have the intention but will have a hard time passing this now.
Democrat strategy:
Kill off the old people, bury the children in debt, then tell the press how much you “care about real people.”
And the crazy thing is....it works! Or at least,it works so far.
My Blind 86 Year Old Aunt, who is a member of SCAN and is very happy with the plan, loved it when I read that part to her. /s
She told me long before Obama was elected that just by listening to him she knew he was a Phony. She has been blind for 60 years and she can see more clearly than the idiots that voted for Obama.
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