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The Doctor Is Out
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Local advocates for the elderly say the problem of finding such physicians seems to be felt most acutely in Virginia, which has just 2.5 physicians accepting Medicare per 100 beneficiaries, according to ACEP. (The rate in Maryland is four per 100, a little better than the national average of 3.2 per 100.)
Those who counsel seniors in Northern Virginia said that they have received dozens of phone calls over the past several months from seniors looking for help joining a Medicare family practice.
"It's not the folks who already have a doctor and transition into Medicare that are having the problem," said Howard Houghton, program manager for the Fairfax chapter of the Virginia Insurance Counseling and Assistance Program, a service run by the state's local Area Agency on Aging centers. "It's those who are switching doctors or are moving to this area."
Much of the pressure on doctors has come from threatened reductions in fees under the formula that sets Medicare spending. Doctors were slated to receive a 10.1 percent cut in the reimbursement rate this past January and a 10.6 percent cut in July. Congress blocked the reductions both times: Doctors actually got a 1.1 percent increase. But the periodic specter of reductions is enough to leave some feeling wary.
Joseph Antos, a senior fellow for health-care and retirement policy at the American Enterprise Institute, said that it was largely the political debate over the Medicare rate cuts that worried doctors, but that he doubted Congress would ever follow through on such drastic measures.
Lobbyists for doctors and the elderly argued that cutting reimbursement rates would prompt doctors to drop out of the program: In a national survey taken this spring, the American Medical Association suggested that 60 percent of physicians would have stopped taking new Medicare patients if the July cuts had gone through.
But that hasn't eliminated the possibility of cuts in the future.
"The lack of predictability with these Medicare rates is very worrisome to many doctors," said Nancy Nielsen, president of the American Medical Association.
Comments: jenkinsc@washpost.com.
