This is from Ed Morrissey writing at the Fiscal Times:
• In Texas, 34 percent of doctors are not accepting new Medicare patients or have limited the number of patients.
• In Iowa, 17 percent have shut out Medicare patients
• The American Medical Association says 17 percent of more than 9,000 doctors surveyed restrict the number of Medicare patients in their practice. Among primary care physicians, the rate is 31 percent. ...
The problem with all of the health-care industry reforms has been that precise goal: expanding insurance. The widespread use of comprehensive insurance policies insulates end users in the system from price signals, especially on routine care. That eliminates competition on price as insurers use their economic weight to pre-negotiate pricing on every kind of service and product under their coverage, from blood tests to setting broken bones. Providers locked into a specific schedule of reimbursements have no reason to innovate to either lower costs or increase value, and end up having to spend money and time dealing with insurance companies for delayed payments rather than focusing on the patients seeking treatment in their clinics.
Ironically, the multiplication of mandates and other regulations in the ACA on both private insurers and government-run programs like Medicare and Medicaid have more doctors opting out of the third-party-payer system altogether. Earlier this week, CNN Money reported on the migration to cash-only services among health-care providers, driven by poor reimbursements, increasing regulation, and high overhead.
Dr. Doug Nunamaker, a family-practice physician in Wichita, knows that his decision will eliminate some of his demand, but the cost savings and the freedom more than make up for any business lost over his refusal to take insurance. "The paperwork, the hassles, it just got to be overwhelming," Nunamaker told CNN. ...
For most adults, the fee is $50; senior citizens pay $100, but membership for children costs only $10 per month. ...
What happens when a patient needs services the clinic doesn’t provide? Nunamaker has created partnerships with providers at costs amounting to fractions of what insurance pays, CNN reports. A $90 cholesterol test can be purchased for … three dollars. An MRI normally would cost an insurance company $2000, but Nunamaker’s patients can access one for $400. ...
[Lack of hospital care] limits the potential for physicians like Nunamaker, but it doesn’t bother him. He earns around $200,000 a year from his cash-only practice, but more importantly, he gets to focus on treating patients rather than fulfilling insurance-company demands. ...
