A new paper examines the number of physicians fleeing Medicare, finding that many of them are primary-care physicians.
"The Next Exodus: Primary-Care Physicians and Medicare" was released through The National Center for Public Policy Research (NCPPR) as part of a new book by former healthcare policy analyst David Hogberg, Ph.D.
"The American Medical Association does a survey on this [topic] every so often, and in 2010 it found that about 17 percent of physicians were no longer taking new Medicare patients," Hogberg reports. "When they broke it down between different groups of physicians -- primary-care versus specialists -- they found that about 31 percent of primary-care physicians were no longer taking new Medicare patients."
Hogberg suggests the primary reason for this is simply that Medicare does not pay primary-care physicians enough, and many of them lose money on the Medicare patients that they treat. There is also the issue of "bureaucratic hassles that they have to deal with in Medicare to get paid."
"In my paper, I suggest for all Medicare beneficiaries what I call Medicare primary accounts that Medicare would give annually of about $1,200," he explains. "You'd use this to pay for sort of the smaller things -- doctors visits, maybe smaller tests, procedures, things of that sort."
If the beneficiary has any amount left in the account at the end of the year, he or she would get to keep 50 percent of it. The other half would go back to the taxpayers for budget savings.
Hogberg sees this plan having two effects: First, it would turn the beneficiary into a medical consumer with the ability to decide what care he or she needs and how much, while shopping around for the best price. It would also pay the doctor and eliminate the need for coding.