Author Topic: Doctors Begin To Refuse Obamacare Patients  (Read 1094 times)

James

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Doctors Begin To Refuse Obamacare Patients
« on: August 06, 2014, 08:34:20 AM »
Obamacare plans have shrunk payments to physicians so much that some doctors say they won’t be able to afford to accept Obamacare coverage, NPR reports.

Many of the eight million sign-ups in Obamacare exchanges nationwide already face more limited choices for physicians and hospitals than those in the private insurance market. But with low physician reimbursement rates, the problem could get even worse.

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2014/08/04/doctors-begin-to-refuse-obamacare-patients/#ixzz39cuMs92E



dario73

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Re: Doctors Begin To Refuse Obamacare Patients
« Reply #1 on: August 06, 2014, 08:39:02 AM »
Government knows what's best for you.  ::)

LurkerNoMore

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Re: Doctors Begin To Refuse Obamacare Patients
« Reply #2 on: August 06, 2014, 08:49:16 AM »
If you can't afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you.  If you can't afford a doc....haha... good luck bro.

chadstallion

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Re: Doctors Begin To Refuse Obamacare Patients
« Reply #3 on: August 06, 2014, 10:27:53 AM »
If you can't afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you.  If you can't afford a doc....haha... good luck bro.
just go to the emergency room; that was advice from GOP
w

Dos Equis

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Re: Doctors Begin To Refuse Obamacare Patients
« Reply #4 on: August 06, 2014, 10:34:18 AM »
Obamacare plans have shrunk payments to physicians so much that some doctors say they won’t be able to afford to accept Obamacare coverage, NPR reports.

Many of the eight million sign-ups in Obamacare exchanges nationwide already face more limited choices for physicians and hospitals than those in the private insurance market. But with low physician reimbursement rates, the problem could get even worse.

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2014/08/04/doctors-begin-to-refuse-obamacare-patients/#ixzz39cuMs92E




Obamacare is an unmitigated disaster.  It will only get worse.

Straw Man

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Re: Doctors Begin To Refuse Obamacare Patients
« Reply #5 on: August 06, 2014, 10:41:35 AM »
The original source story is not quite a dire as it appears when only reading a paragraph or two

http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/Stories/2014/August/04/A-Doctors-Perspective-On-Obamacare.aspx

Quote
A Doctor's Perspective On Obamacare Plans
By Jeffrey Cohen, WNPR
AUG 04, 2014


On a recent afternoon at his office in Hartford, Conn., Dr. Doug Gerard examines a patient complaining of joint pain. Gerard, an internist, checks her out, asks her a few questions about her symptoms and then orders a few tests before sending her on her way.

For a typical quick visit like this, Gerard could get reimbursed $100 or more from a private insurer. For the same visit, Medicare pays less — about $80. And now, with the new private plans under the Affordable Care Act, Gerard says he would get something in between, but closer to the lower Medicare rates.

That's not something he's willing to accept.

"I cannot accept a plan [in which] potentially commercial-type reimbursement rates were now going to be reimbursed at Medicare rates,” Gerard says. “You have to maintain a certain mix in private practice between the low reimbursers and the high reimbursers to be able to keep the lights on."

Three insurers offered plans on Connecticut’s ACA marketplace in 2014, and Gerard is only accepting one. He won't say which, but he will say it pays the highest rate to doctors.

"I don't think most physicians know what they're being reimbursed. Only when they start seeing some of those rates come through will they realize how low the rates are they agreed to."

Gerard's decision to reject two plans is something officials in Connecticut are concerned about. If reimbursement rates to doctors stay low in Obamacare plans, more doctors could reject those plans. And that could mean that people will get access to insurance, but they may not get access to a lot of doctors.

That worries Kevin Counihan, who runs Connecticut's health insurance marketplace.

"I think it could lead potentially to this kind of distinction that there are these different tiers of quality of care," Counihan says.

His agency recently approved rules geared at getting more providers into plans on the exchange. The goal is to make sure that everyone gets good care regardless of their income.

He doesn't want the impression left that someone who gets a subsidy to buy ACA coverage will get inferior care. “That's been something, at least in our state, that we're trying to work against. And the carriers are, as well," Counihan says.

All three of the insurers on Connecticut's exchange were asked to comment. Two declined. One agreed. Ken Lalime is the CEO of Healthy CT — an insurance co-op. He says insurers face a real challenge figuring out how to pay doctors enough but also keep consumer premiums low.

"Every time you increase payments to providers, you have to offset that with increased reimbursements from the consumer,” says Lalime. “So there's this balance between how much do you want to cost to provide that service and how much you can pass along in your premiums rates. It's a balancing act."

Healthy CT may have missed the balance – just 3 percent of the exchange's consumers bought the co-op's insurance in 2014. Lalime says he also thinks low reimbursement rates are forcing some doctors to decide against accepting insurance under the Affordable Care Act.

Dr. Bob Russo is sure of it. He's a radiologist and he's also the president-elect of the Connecticut State Medical Society. He says that the low rates and administrative burdens that come along with the ACA could make it a financial loser.

"You get what you pay for,” Russo says. “If you can't convince [doctors] that they're not losing money doing their job, then it's a problem. And they haven't been able to convince people of that."

He, like Counihan, worries about creating a tiered health care system. He says, think about Medicaid. Before a recent rise in rates, it paid doctors even less than Medicare, so many stopped accepting Medicaid patients.

"There's no question that Medicaid, under its old rates, wasn't working. So, have we just invented a new Medicaid that kind of slid the scale up a little more to make access a little more?" Russo says.

The experience of these doctors is a good reminder that the Affordable Care Act is more than a thought exercise in health care. It's happening. And here's another reminder: open enrollment for 2015 begins in just over three month

Dos Equis

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Re: Doctors Begin To Refuse Obamacare Patients
« Reply #6 on: August 06, 2014, 10:50:35 AM »
just go to the emergency room; that was advice from GOP

Not true, but the ER, county hospitals, Medicaid, Medicare, and their state equivalents are all options.

dario73

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Re: Doctors Begin To Refuse Obamacare Patients
« Reply #7 on: August 06, 2014, 11:21:43 AM »
just go to the emergency room; that was advice from GOP
Link?

This crapcare legislation was supposed to decrease emergency room visits. Another reason why that law is a failure.

Straw Man

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Re: Doctors Begin To Refuse Obamacare Patients
« Reply #8 on: August 06, 2014, 11:39:15 AM »
Link?

This crapcare legislation was supposed to decrease emergency room visits. Another reason why that law is a failure.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2012/09/24/romney-calls-emergency-room-a-health-care-option-for-uninsured/

Quote
In his interview with CBS News' "60 Minutes" that aired Sunday night, Republican  presidential candidate Mitt Romney pointed to emergency rooms as a form of health care for people without insurance.

"Well, we do provide care for people who don't have insurance," Romney told interviewer Scott Pelley. "If someone has a heart attack, they don't sit in their apartment and -- and die. We pick them up in an ambulance, and take them to the hospital, and give them care. And different states have different ways of providing for that care."

When Pelley pointed out that the ER is the most expensive form of health-care, Romney argued that he was talking about a variety of options that vary by state.

"Some provide that care through clinics, some provide that care through emergency rooms," he said. In Massachusetts, Romney said, they had come up with a different solution -- but he wouldn't push universal care on other states.

Then-President George W. Bush made a similar comment in 2007, when threatening to veto an expansion of the federal Children's Health Insurance Program. "People have access to health care in America," Bush told a Cleveland audience. "After all, you just go to an emergency room."

LurkerNoMore

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Re: Doctors Begin To Refuse Obamacare Patients
« Reply #9 on: August 06, 2014, 03:02:05 PM »
just go to the emergency room; that was advice from GOP

Happens all the time.  Out of the depts that I am over (ER, OR, BB) the ER has the highest rate of uninsured post third (non emergency) traffic than the other two combined. 

People come in all the time with bullshit ailments for no reason - flu, migraines, allergies (no joke) - and expect immediate treatment.  (Never mind they can't afford to pay)  The triage nurse will let them sit there for so long they often either start to feel better or just give up.  The few that do stick it out basically get hustled in and out so fast with just a two day supply and a common script for something like Tylenol 3 or Tessalon Perles that you know nothing was accomplished.  Because they don't even bother to go get the script filled.  Then you see them back in there a week later.  WTF people?

chadstallion

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Re: Doctors Begin To Refuse Obamacare Patients
« Reply #10 on: August 06, 2014, 04:00:43 PM »
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2012/09/24/romney-calls-emergency-room-a-health-care-option-for-uninsured/

thank you, Straw Man!
however, just because he asked for a link and you gave him one doesn't mean he will give it any consideration.
w

Straw Man

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Re: Doctors Begin To Refuse Obamacare Patients
« Reply #11 on: August 06, 2014, 04:36:45 PM »
thank you, Straw Man!
however, just because he asked for a link and you gave him one doesn't mean he will give it any consideration.

par for the course around here
I would expect nothing less

LurkerNoMore

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Re: Doctors Begin To Refuse Obamacare Patients
« Reply #12 on: August 06, 2014, 05:12:54 PM »
thank you, Straw Man!
however, just because he asked for a link and you gave him one doesn't mean he will give it any consideration.

Umm.... no.  He won't.  It is just another kick in the nuts from reality.

HEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHE