Medicare Implodes - Doctors Opt Out of Medicare at Alarming Rate; Fountain of Youth Sought

Doctors losing money doing "God's Work" in Medicare, are tired of the losses. Many refuse to take new patients. Others have thrown in the towel altogether.

The Houston Chronicle has the details in Texas doctors opting out of Medicare at alarming rate.

Texas doctors are opting out of Medicare at alarming rates, frustrated by reimbursement cuts they say make participation in government-funded care of seniors unaffordable.

Two years after a survey found nearly half of Texas doctors weren't taking some new Medicare patients, new data shows 100 to 200 a year are now ending all involvement with the program. Before 2007, the number of doctors opting out averaged less than a handful a year.

�This new data shows the Medicare system is beginning to implode,� said Dr. Susan Bailey, president of the Texas Medical Association. �If Congress doesn't fix Medicare soon, there'll be more and more doctors dropping out and Congress' promise to provide medical care to seniors will be broken.�

More than 300 doctors have dropped the program in the last two years, including 50 in the first three months of 2010, according to data compiled by the Houston Chronicle. Texas Medical Association officials, who conducted the 2008 survey, said the numbers far exceeded their assumptions.

The largest number of doctors opting out comes from primary care, a field already short of practitioners nationally and especially in Texas. Psychiatrists also make up a large share of the pie, causing one Texas leader to say, �God forbid that a senior has dementia.�

The opt-outs follow years of declining Medicare reimbursement that culminated in a looming 21 percent cut in 2010. Congress has voted three times to postpone the cut, which was originally to take effect Jan. 1. It is now set to take effect June 1.

In 2008, 42 percent of Texas doctors participating in the survey said they were no longer accepting all new Medicare patients. Among primary-care doctors, the percentage was 62 percent.

�You do Medicare for God and country because you lose money on it,� said [Dr. Guy Culpepper, a Dallas-area family practice doctor], a graduate of the University of Texas Medical School at Houston. �The only way to provide cost-effective care is outside the Medicare system, a system without constant paperwork and headaches and inadequate reimbursement.�

�I've been in practice 24 years, and a lot of my patients got old right along with me,� Culpepper said. �It's stressful to tell them you're leaving Medicare and they're responsible for payments if they want to stay with you. You feel like you're abandoning them.�

Fountain of Youth Sought

Senator John Cornyn, R-Texas says �The problem has been how to eliminate the cuts without running up the deficit.�

The escalating Medicare problem means it's time to start the search anew for the proverbial "Free Lunch", or better yet, the "Fountain of Youth".

Alternatively one could cut military spending in half, allow drug imports from Canada, allow insurance policies to be sold across state lines, stop giving free medical care to illegal aliens, and stop wasting so much money on terminally ill patients with a year or less to live.

Nah.
It's easier to look for the proverbial "Free Lunch". No one is ever offended by that approach.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
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