Sunday, November 4, 2007

Medicare Rate Reduction

This is really unfortunate. I know of several physicians that I work with who will be closing their doors to new medicare patients. Some may wrongly conclude this is just greed on the part of doctors. Its really about the physicians ability to deliver quality medical care however. Medicare patients are a very complex group of patients. Life expectancy is higher, there are new drugs to treat new conditions. These patients are frequently hospitalized and move from care setting to care setting (hospitals, nursing homes, Rehabs etc). They frequently require state-of-the art diagnostic testing. Keeping track of all these issues, dealing with long family visits, phones calls, coordinating care is all too time consuming. With decreasing resources, there is a limit to how far a physician can extend themselves.
For more information, take a look at FierceHealthIT, Physicians see expected 10 percent Medicare cut.

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