More doctors accepting Medicare patients

[Zach]

Report: More doctors accepting Medicare patients
Kelly Kennedy, USA TODAY 1:08 p.m. EDT August 22, 2013

http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2013/08/22/report-medicare-physician-access/2682301/

WASHINGTON — The number of physicians accepting new Medicare patients rose by one-third between 2007 and 2011 and is now higher than the number of physicians accepting new private insurance patients, according to a Department of Health and Human Services report obtained by USA TODAY.

In 2007, about 925,000 doctors billed Medicare for their services. In 2011, that number had risen to 1.25 million, according to the report by the HHS Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation.

"I think the report comes at a time when people are asking questions about Medicare," said Jonathan Blum, principal deputy administrator for the Center for Medicare Services. "It provides a more complete picture of how physicians choose to participate in the Medicare system."

Physicians have complained about Medicare payment caps, the annual debate in Congress over the way Medicare pays doctors and new paperwork requirements.

"Overall, the clients we deal with have good access to physicians," said Joe Baker, president of the Medicare Rights Center, a non-profit advocacy group for older Americans and people with disabilities. "We find the physicians who don't take Medicare don't take other insurance, either, but it's not a problem we see regularly."

However, he said doctors talk to their patients more about insurance as Congress continues to delay the "sustained growth rate" payment system, which could lower rates by 30%. The system is meant to make sure expenses per Medicare beneficiary do not exceed the growth in GDP, but it can be suspended or adjusted by Congress.

"That's really been a political football," he said. "They tell their patients, 'You should call your Congress person because if Congress cuts my reimbursement 30%, I won't be able to see you.' "

The report was commissioned because of a Wall Street Journal article that reported the number of doctors who opt out of Medicare increased from 3,700 in 2009 to about 9,500 in 2012. That won't cause problems, officials said, because there are more new primary care physicians entering the health care system than older physicians dropping out.

"These findings allay concern that the number of physicians 'opting out' of Medicare has increased in recent years," the report states.

Blum said Medicare-monitoring offices, such as the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (Medpac), have always been interested in access to care. But because they hadn't seen any "alarming trends," they would not have issued a formal brief if it had not been for the newspaper article.

"It confirms the picture we had," Blum said. "It just adds one more data point to a story we've felt quite confident about."

Ninety percent of office-based physicians accept new Medicare patients, a rate similar to those who take privately insured patients, researchers found. The rate of Medicare patients who say they can find a new doctor in a timely manner is similar to those who are privately insured, the report said.

Medpac found 28% of the 7% of Medicare beneficiaries looking for a new doctor had a tough time finding someone who accepted Medicare last year, but Blum said that's also similar to privately insured rates.

Baker said his clients have had a harder time finding doctors in densely populated cities, such as New York, Washington and San Francisco.

"But there are still plenty of doctors taking Medicare," he said. "We've never not been able to find them a doctor who does take Medicare."

[Rerun]

I guess Medicare payments are better than nothing. 

[Hemodoc]

Not sure what to make of this report since the 2010 census for docs showed 850,085 US docs including all the states and territories and that number increased to 878,194 for 2012.

http://www.nationalahec.org/pdfs/FSMBPhysicianCensus.pdf

http://www.fsmb.org/pdf/final_census_article2012.pdf

Now they claim 1.25 million docs in 2011 billed Medicare. Go figure, we gained nearly 400,000 new docs and they all billed Medicare between 2010 and 2011. If this article bears any truth, it includes more than just DO's and MD's in their figures.

[Bill Peckham]

Weird USA Today's reporting is not in depth ...

Here is the full report (you'd think the article would provide a link) http://aspe.hhs.gov/health/reports/2013/PhysicianMedicare/ib_PhysicianMedicare.cfm#_ftn3 - my emphasis:

According to Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) data, there were about 650,000 physicians who participated in the Medicare program in 2011 and nearly 1 million participating providers in total (including non-physician providers such as nurse practitioners)

I haven't quite figured out where USA Today's 1.25 Million number came from exactly but it clearly meant to include all participating providers not only individual physicians.

On thing that hasn't been mentioned is that among the doctors that don't see patients (those that do not accept Medicare or Private insurance) are docs in academic research or who head programs, for instance the CKD Program at NKC is lead by Dr Tishler but I don't think she has a private practice, the same goes for Dr Himmelfarb who leads the KRI.