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+--- Thread: If you think health care is dysfunctional now, just wait until after January 1 (/thread-13339.html)
If you think health care is dysfunctional now, just wait until after January 1 - C C - Dec 12, 2022
https://www.statnews.com/2022/12/08/health-care-even-more-dysfunctional-after-medicare-cuts/
INTRO: Doctors across the country, especially those in primary care, have been up in arms about Medicare’s proposed cuts in reimbursement that are scheduled to go into effect on January 1. They are concerned — rightfully so — that these cuts will be ruinous to their practices and compromise the care they can provide to their patients.
As an emergency physician, I worry about the cuts for a different reason: emergency departments might soon be filled with more and more people who can’t access primary care.
In a recent commentary in the Washington Post, Shirlene Obuobi, a physician in Chicago, wrote about why patients no longer feel cared for by their physicians. Among other things, she described how Medicare and private insurers “reward procedures, imaging, tests and other diagnostics that generate revenue and have high reimbursement rates.”
Falling payments to primary care doctors and generalists have forced them to increase the number of patients they see in a day, sometimes having to schedule patients every 10 minutes to justify staying open. The inevitable burnout caused by such pressures will likely drive some away from primary care, making that kind of essential care even harder to come by.
I see the consequences of this system nearly every time I work in the emergency department..
[...] The U.S. health care system is broken and Obuobi is right to call attention to it. But as bad as things are now, they’re going to get worse if the proposed Medicare reimbursement cuts go into effect, because even more people will find themselves unable to access primary care... (MORE - details)