California doctors, insurers face off over reimbursement rates

Santa Cruz Sentinel ^ | 02/23/2014 | Tracy Seipel

[artichokegrower]

Lowering costs by forcing doctors and insurers to compete for millions of new patients is a primary goal of the nation's new health care law, but a group of gastroenterologists in the East Bay and internists near Chico are exposing a fissure in that plan.

There often aren't enough doctors to go around.

[artichokegrower]

The wheel is coming of the cart of Covered California which is the Affordable Care Act in California. The web site has been down since last Wednesday and now they are discovering that for the folks that have signed up there are not enough doctors to go around. This is interesting as they admit that they have not reached their goals for signups. Now participating insurance companies are saying that they will have to raise their reimbursement rate to doctors which will eventually mean higher premiums for the rest of us.

[DIRTYSECRET]

They wanted Obama care-especially the HMO’s. Now they can fight for more. The basics are in place. They’re pulling their punches.

[mac_truck]

Who knew the universal law of supply and demand would be so difficult to repeal...

[Soul of the South]

One of the specialists who treats me is the only board certified physician in the specialty for a county of 500,000. He regularly works 10-12 hour days trying to serve the community while maximizing his income.

I asked him about Obamacare. From his perspective the goal is to move independent physicians in private practice to group practices controlled by a hospital. Once the physicians are captive, they will be put on a salary instead of having incomes that vary by the number of patients they see. At that point the medical industry (i.e. the government) controls what a physician can make.

The government and hospitals believe they will control costs by limiting physician pay. As he indicated human beings will behave according the incentives and disincentives they encounter. My doctor asserts at the loin he is forced to salary he will begin working a 9 to 5 day as opposed to the 7 am to 6:30 pm day he currently works. He will also take a full hour for lunch instead of grabbing a quick sandwich and seeing patients through the lunch hour. In order to serve the same number of patients the hospital will be forced to hire another specialist and the combined cost of two employee physicians will exceed the cost to the system of one specialist who works overtime to maximize his income. The other option of course for the hospital bureaucracy is rationing care.

Which choice will the hospital (i.e. government) make?

[Pecos]

The government will ration care and blame the greedy doctors. The fact that the government deliberately set up the system to fail will not be discussed by the MSM. Next easy question, please.

[Vaduz]

There are not enough doctors to go around.
Fear not this state has more than enough illegal doctors to go around.