Can Doctors Afford To Stay In Medicare?

There’s a very interesting but probably little noted piece at Fox News by Dr. C.L. Gray, who is, interestingly enough, the president of Physicians For Reform. His general premise is that while reform is needed in the medical field, what Congress is chasing is not at all the answer. And he uses Medicare as the vehicle to make his point.

I’m sure you remember the story that came out not long ago about the Mayo Clinic deciding not to take anymore Medicare patients. If you’ve been staying abreast, that’s just a very well known clinic doing what a lot of lesser known clinics and doctors have been doing for quite some time. Gray claims that Mayo lost “840 million” caring for medicare patients.

He lays the physician trend away from Medicare to two overall reasons.

The first is simple–the math:

1) For the past decade Medicare consistently paid physicians 20% less than traditional insurance companies for identical service.

2) On January 1, 2010 Washington made hidden cuts to Medicare by altering its billing codes.

3) Medicare will cut physician reimbursement by another 21% on March 1. The CBO said this cut must take place if the Senate healthcare bill was to “reduced the deficit.”

4) Even more, Congress pledged to cut Medicare by yet another $500 billion. Again, the CBO said this additional cut must take place if the Senate healthcare bill was to “reduced the deficit.”

Many physicians were operating at a loss even before this series of massive cuts. In 2008, Mayo Clinic posted an $840 million loss in caring for Medicare patients. No businesses can survive when patient care expenses exceed revenue.

No business can survive operating at a loss, and that’s essentially what has been happening with Medicare prior to “reform”. With more cuts promised by “reform” it becomes a financial “no brainer”. We’re talking about a business decision. To remain a healthy business, and all practices are businesses, that which is causing a loss and overall negative drag on revenue has to be cut out to bring the revenue flow backto positive in order for the business to survive. That’s called a profit – something it would seem the government finds distasteful. But profit is what allows you to serve your clientele with adequate and appropriate staff, treatment and equipment. Mayo made that decision after it surveyed the impact of that particular group of patients on its bottom line and the impact of their removal. Obviously Mayo felt that continuing to serve that group, at the tremendous loss they were suffering, was effecting their overall ability to deliver the finest health care possible to the rest of their patients.

Expect to see more of that if “reform” is passed.

The second reason Gray gives is much less obvious than the first. But it provides just as powerful an incentive to ditch Medicare as does the first:

The second is more ominous–Washington’s increasingly abusive posture toward physicians.

President Obama reflected this attitude last summer. On national television, he stated as fact a surgeon is paid between $30,000 and $50,000 for amputating a patient’s foot.

In reality, a surgeon is paid between $740 and $1,140 to perform this unfortunate, but often life-saving procedure. This reimbursement must cover a pre-operative evaluation the day of surgery, the surgery, and follow-up for 90 days after surgery–not to mention malpractice insurance, salaries for clinic nurses, and clinic overhead. It is frightening to think our president is so wildly misinformed even as he stands on the cusp of overhauling American health care. But it gets worse.

Given massive federal deficits, Washington now faces increasing pressure to cut Medicare spending. One way to do this is to intimidate physicians into under-billing. To do this Washington intends to spend tax payer dollars to ramp up physician audits using Recovery Audit Contractors (RAC audits) to randomly investigate private physician’s Medicare billing.

Gray characterizes the RAC as unqualified bounty hunters and gives examples of his contention. The most egregious example is this:

For example, one patient the auditor alleged the group had “fraudulently” billed for was a man undergoing a chemical stress test. The allegation was the patient should have undergone a cheaper traditional treadmill stress test. The difficulty with this accusation was this man was a double amputee–he had no legs. This made a traditional treadmill test impossible. The auditors clearly were not trained health care professionals–they were bounty hunters. (It is worth noting the investigators are given legal immunity from a countersuit for conducting a “fraudulent investigation.”)

It is a good example because even the layman can appreciate why this particular case is so absurd. However, the doctors in question had to spend money to defend against this allegation of wrong doing. It brings up a critical point. One of the promises of “reform” is it will help remove the insurance company from between you and your physician. But as is obvious here, in a government plan such as Medicare, there is still someone between you and your physician who is no more qualified than some insurance drone.

The point, of course is that the drastically reduced Medicare payments to physicians coupled with increased meddling and second-guessing through RAC has driven doctors to a fish or cut bait point as it pertains to Medicare. They are forced into a business decision which requires them to give their practice a financial physical and cut out the portion which will cause the practice to die if not excised.

It is obviously a tough decision that I’d bet most doctors would prefer not to have to make, but as seen with the Mayo Clinic, they’re being driven to do so. This is the future of medical care if government runs it. Anyone who can’t see the rationing inherent in the “reforms” to Medicare is simply remaining willfully blind to the facts. Government must ration. And physicians must act in their own best self-interest. That means fewer physicians seeing more Medicare patients. The result is inevitable and as usual, the patients are those that will suffer.

[Crossposted at QandO]

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