Are you talking about individual or group plans, because there are key differences, specifically as it relates to guarantee issue.

When you work for a company that offers insurance, it's a non event, except the process during enrollment is confusing and a pain in the ass. Now when it comes to the individual market, it's a whole different game. In California, you fill out a long detailed application stating every prescription you take, and ailment you have had in the past X years. The insurance underwriters may call the potential customer, or your family doctor for clarification. Based on what you say (current rules), you will be accepted, declined, or accepted with a rate increase based on your application, i.e. high cholesterol gets you a 25% rate increase. Again, if accepted, the insurance company sends out a welcome packet, and right in the front of the packet is your written application, which means if you lied, and you attempt to file a claim, you're denied.

Re preventive care as a part of ACA, it was mandated at the beginning of 2012, except for individual "grandfathered" plans. If you have a grandfathered plan and want to change to a plan that provides preventive services, you can, but you will pay a higher premium, as well as go through the enrollment process AGAIN.

The only group that would avoid preventive care is the young and healthy, and I'm betting mostly males, i.e. 18-35 demographics. Women, thru media and the like have been conditioned to take advantage of "well women" care, which is part of preventive services, which could have a side effect of reducing Planned Parenthood's business. If you are sick, feeble, weak, fat, which is 50% of the population, you're going to take advantage of it.

Like you mari, but maybe for different reasons, Obamacare is a joke. Premiums will continue to escalate, and taxes will continue to rise in a feeble attempt to help fund it. Will it work, NO.

P.S. Sorry about your Blue Devils the other day. They had to lose sometime. My Bruins are on a hot streak, but I have no illusion that they will get beyond the 2nd round of March Madness.

I don’t really know the answer to this but I suspect it will. Here is why. As I understand it, when Obamacare begins running in 2014, health insurers cannot require applicants to take a physical exam and maybe not even to answer health questions. (I’m not entirely sure about this so if someone knows the answer please advise.)

     In states that do not mandate guaranteed issue policies, most if not all health insurers now require you to answer medical history questions and many require a physical since they do not want to cover pre-existing conditions. But this does result in most applicants getting a physical at least at the inception of their coverage.

      Now, if I am right that physicals are prohibited as a condition to obtaining health insurance in 2014, I can see many persons deciding to skip their annual physical.

“You want to give me a colonoscopy, doc? No, thanks, I’m sure I’m fine.”
“You want me to take an HIV test?” Too stressful to wait for the results. I’m sure I’m fine.”
“Chest X ray to see if 30 years of smoking have caused any problems?” No, thanks.”
“My cholesterol is too high? Stop eating cheese and foods with saturated fat? Lose 20 pounds. Are you crazy? [Okay this is what the doctor told me last week-now I have to worry about this. I was much happier when I didn’t think about it]

      Obamacare seeks to remedy this problem by making preventive physicals covered by insurance. But I think many will skip the unpleasant preventative steps and just rely on the government mandated insurance to bail them out when something really bad happens.

Your confusing pre-insurance physical with annual exams.  That is two different things.  
With Obamacare people will get more preventive care because insurance companies MUST cover preventive care.  In the past people did not see a doctor until they had a problem because many insurance companies would not pay for routine preventive care.

I have never run into a required physical for "health insurance".  Some may require that, but I have never run into that requirement.  

It is a routine requirement for "Life Insurance".  Nothing in the "Health Care Reform Act" changes this.

The issue that occurs is that insurance companies can take cover from offering many standard tests that used to be considered preventive care administered in the course of an annual physical.  Now, insurance companies are only required to categorize as "preventive" those things explicitly listed by the government.  So for example, the government says chest xrays are no longer considered preventive and thus are not covered.  Many traditional blood tests are no longer considered preventive.  Ditto for the EKG no longer preventive.  And the list goes on and on.  Even the colonoscopy care has a government sanctioned loophole wherein it is covered as preventive as long as no pollips are found during the exam.  If pollips are found, then the colonoscopy is recategorized as diagnostic and is now subject to your deductable payment.

So in short, the reality is that, yes, annual physicals are going to be curtailed in the sense that you are no longer going to get the kind of preventive testing that traditionally has been part of an annual physical.  You will get a bare bones exam which according to my physician is almost useless since there are so many ailments that could be caught early and dealt with easily.  But now, such tests are not covered as preventive.  Unless the patient presents during the exam with complaints about certain things, the tests won't even be administered.  And if they are, they are diagnostic and thus subject to patient deductable.

Wow, I'm not a doctor but I did think that was an important part of the annual exam, at least for men over 40. I know I've been getting them since my early 40s even though I never had heart problems and was a distance runner, until I wrecked my knee and became a coach potato.

   It sounds like the "free" preventative exam trumpeted by Mr. Obama is a bit of a misnomer if all you get is a barebones exam. You would think just the opposite would be true - with a heavy inflow of previously uninsured persons coming into the system, you would think the scope of the exam would be much more thorough.

      You are right - Obamacare will reduce the efficiacy of the annual exam in more subtle ways than I was thinking.

     Thanks for a very informed answer Pwilley.

but why do you discount that many of the new patients who have never had health insurance before and have no tradition of annual exams will pass on the "free exam" and just wait till they have a problem.

     As long as Obamacare was mandating that we all pay for health insurance or pay a penalty they should have kept going and made the annual physcial mandatory. Now that would save some serious health care dollars down the road. But you are right- the pre-insurance physical is different from the annual exam.

of new participants in our health care system.

       I do think there is a segment of this new population with no tradition of annual exams will not take advantage of the "free" exam either bc they want to avoid unpleasant medical procedures or don't want to take the time. But certainly the responsible option is for them to do so.

    I don't think I saw a doctor between 18 and 35 except for the time some idiot broke my nose when we were going for a rebound. That ended my career as a rebounder and I found staying on the perimeter and shooting was not only safer but a lot more fun.

Yeah UCLA is looking good but it is hard to tell when they play yeams like Colorado and Utah all the time. Let's see how they do against Arizona my friend.

That Duke -UCLA bet you proposed is actually starting to swing the other way.

"many of the new patients who have never had health insurance before and have no tradition of annual exams will pass on the "free exam"

How many and what percentage? I suspect there will be many more who once had insurance, but lost it due to job change or loss, who will be very happy to get a free physical exam.

pwilley reports medical experiences unknown to anyone with experience in medicine and a brain on this planet. Always has and always will.  Any MD doing a 'yearly PE', Mari would order an  EKG and would be damn sure it gets covered.  Be aware thought that an EKG/and or an ECHO while giving valuable information are hardly a full picture of your cardiac status, and that as you get older whether symptomatic or not, a treadmill and nuclear scan following the treadmill is necessary to detect coronary perfusion problems, and if they are positive then it's mandatory to follow them with a cardiac cath.  The nuclear scan can very accurately mirror perfusion of the ventricles and coronary artery patency although it is not the gold standard a coronary catheterization is. Rarely the nuclear scan doesn't match the cath, but that's extremely rare.

There is a well  known stat in the emergency medicine/or cardilolgy literature.  60-70% of patients who present to an ER or who experience an MI have none of the classic symptoms that are taught for coronary ischemia when they present, and may have a normal EKG.

ACA isn't the cause of insurance companies trying to exclude lab studies at all, and if anything it will afford more access to them.  I haven't ever had trouble getting a colonoscopy for a patient and the detection of polyps (spelling in English isn't pwilley's strong point) has had no impact.  It is relatively rare that a small adenomatous polyp or a few aren't detected.  When I think it's indicated, I refer to a great GI group, and the colonoscopy or EGD (esophogastroduodenoscopy) gets done right away.

These things are certain:

1) pwilley will continue to report fictional experiences that no doctor has ever seen as to coverage
2) The ACA will be implemented in the coming years and the vast majority will embrace it once they see the results including as in pwilley's home turf the partnering of Blue Cross and Emory Healthcare where this skimping that pwilley fictionalizes would never be tolerated
3) Mari will disparage the ACA and try to showcase the systems of the past that weren't working at all until his dying day
4) The imbecilic governor of pwilley's state, Nathan Deal will continue to have at least 20% of the population of his state with no access to health care and a threat to the four Trauma Level IV facilities like Grady in pwilley's state causing the deaths of thousands of people because the ETA's are too long
Deal's refusal to accept $40 billion of expansion funds will  soon prove to be a colossally stupid move, and the 'bed tax' debacle that will be the headline in pwilley's newspaper exacerbates just that.

Southern states have the worst delivery of medical care to their uninsured populations, and of course their GOP governors like Deal in Georgia are doing all they can to insure it will continue to deteriorate.

This will only serve to raise insurance rates for everyone because hospitals will pass on the cost of providing care to the uninsured who flock into emergency rooms which I've said over a dozen times here aren't equipped by time, persoonel or the tools to provide care for chronic medical problems.

Sebelius needs to get in the face of insurance companies however.  She did just that last year and they're back again trying the same rate raises.  The ACA doesn't facilitate higher rates, and exchanges should bring them down although single payer would have been far superior.  HHS Secretary can stop those raises.

Insurance companies try to raise rates as they are now every year particulary before the ACA reaches full impact in 2014.

Health Insurers Raise Some Rates by Double Digits
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/06/business/despite-new-health-law-some-see-sharp-rise-in-premiums.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

-- Modified on 1/15/2013 11:38:18 AM

Jeff, even on this board, it's not often that somebody calls someone an outright liar as you have done.  WTF.  Do you really think I'm making this stuff up.  Every single word I stated is true and based on fact.  Not idle speculation, not what is considered righteous by a doctor, .... just the pure facts about what insurance will and will not cover.  And lest you doubt, my insurance carrier is the largest in the US.

And nothing in my comment was political.  It's just the simple economics of how the insurance carriers now treat things, and the "get outta jail free cards" that ACA built into the formula that allows these exclusions to be made.

You clearly are living in a fictional world if you think anything I said is not true.

as not including an EKG which is what I found shocking since as you say any doctor would order it. But the doctor is powerless to be "sure that it is covered." Have not looked at the definition statute myself so I can't say if he is right but he sounded like he knew.


     As for my "disparaging Obamacare" what is wrong with that? The more I study it the more I find provisions that are not good public policy and will have unintended consequences. You completely brushed off my 'Dracula Board" post and went off on a tangent about he publisher of the article I linked but that Board is vested with almost unchecked power to make Medicare decisions that at the very least will stifle innovation bc risky and costly drugs and devices will not be covered. Romney and Ryand were right on this one.

    You will be hearing more about this Board this year when Mr. Obama appoints the 15 members, the Republicans try to have it repealed, and the lawsuit challenging its unconstitutionality proceeds thru the court system. My prediction-  this part of Obamacare will never stand.

 

Some may pass on a preventive physical.  Some are procrastinators, other don't like (or trust) doctors.
Human Nature is such that some will always buck the system.  But many other will get preventive care that do not not for financial reasons.  

No elected representative in either party would consider make physical exams mandatory.  
But nothing would prevent insurance companies from offering plans with that requirement.  
It could be something they could offer to those that want a lower rate.

would be to take the free physical. But we are talking about 49 million new persons added to the health care system. If only 1% decide to avoid the exam, we are still talking about 500,000 people. I'd guess the percentage will be higher.

See link:

http://www.healthcare.gov/news/factsheets/2010/07/preventive-services-list.html

Are you saying none of the " about 49 million new persons added to the health care system" have never had health insurance previously? Or, what portion of that 49 million have had, and what portion has not had. I believe those who have had insurance previously, but lost it due to job changes or losses by themselves or a spouse, will take full advantage of ACA.

If the M.D. knows what they are doing, the colonoscopy can get paid for without hundreds of dollars being pushed to the patient. The whole purpose of doing a colonoscopy is to miss no polyps and do an excisional biopsy on all of them regardless of the size.  There is no major medical group or major GI group that isn't unanimously in favor of this.  Modifier 33 and leaning on the insurance company are sometimes tools that have to be employed and that's part of a physician's job.

http://www.kff.org/healthreform/upload/8351.pdf

-- Modified on 1/15/2013 6:46:03 PM

When an insurer is so callous that they literally play with a patient's life when a potential cancer is preventable and/or curable when stopped out it's early stages (as in the case of  scrfeening adenomas or adenomatous polyps with definite malignant potential) this should be stopped and overcome.

Not only do they risk someone's life by discouraging screening, but they cause morbidity, anguish, and frustration on the part of the patient that should not be tolerated.

http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/172674-overview#a0104

-- Modified on 1/15/2013 6:37:28 PM

that the former insured are more likely than the never insured to take advantage of the ACA. And the never insured with pre-existing conditions are likely to do so as well since they know they have a problem.

        But I'd guess that still leaves quite a few that will take the insurance and wait till a problem develops to see a doctor. My point is that this is an unintended and undesireable consequence of Obamacare. The scope of the problem remains to be seen.

I am recently covered under medicare plus have supplemental insurance.  I called the Dr. who has been my Doc for 15 years.  I had a minor issue about 3 years ago and he referred me to another Doc who performed a surgery to correct the issue.  I had not therefore been back to my original Doc because I had a couple follow up visits scheduled with surgery Doc and time passed, etc...I have no medical issues, take no medications, am in excellent health,,,I called original Doc's office for an appointment for a wellness physical....Admin person told me that since I had not seen original Doc in over 3 years I would be treated as a new patient....Okay..what do I need to do?  You will need to fill out questionnaire, etc...and by the way who is your insurance with?  I have Medicare plus supplemental insurance....Well, since you have not seen original Doc in 3 years, we are not accepting any New Medicare Patients!  So......she sent it to the Doc for his review and is to get back to me if he will take me back as a patient......Funny thing-I was one of his early patients when he was starting his practice-was directed to his colleague for an issue he found....now inspite of fact that his website says he takes Medicare-no dice unless he makes a one to one decision to allow me back in!!!  Get ready for Obamacare to generate this even more.  I have a friend who is a Doctor but is located further than I want to drive for a simple physical-in his practice they limit the number of Medicare patients to 10% of the total patient base...Just sayin'.......Have a nice day!

I'll echo what you are saying. There will be less and less primary care physicians, and those that stay will convert to "concierge" service. Pay a yearly out of pocket fee, and voila, you will get unbelievable service. Just like flying first class vs coach.

Since the mandate focuses on the young and healthy to pay for the chronic, obese, self-inflicted masses, I would tell any employed young person take the penalty vs the insurance. The penalty is $695 per year, where the average high deductible plan is $1200 a year. If marikod is correct about this segment not taking advantage of preventive services, then what is the incentive. Now if the young and employed are smart, they will learn to minimize the tax through "creative" tax avoidance. Read the word creative any way you want.

I know progressives want a egalitarian society, but they just don't understand unintended consequences.

That has been going on in the suburbs of ATL for past year.  In general, doctors are rejecting any new patients who use government insurance.  And along this same line, many of these doctors are also dropping their association as an "in network" provider with certain insurance companies.

Most who supported Obama will no doubt never let the facts of what is actually happening be digested into their brain.  They will mentally block it from reality, that is, until it hits them squarely in the nose.

I mean, just look at Mr. Jeff, the self annointed board doctor.  Calls me a liar for pointing out the truth about annual physicals.  None are so blind.....  But a small prediction, as the full impact of ACA begins to kick in, their will be a mucher louder public outcry about ACA than anyone probably imagines.  And wait till all those newcomers on the government tit try to find a doctor who will accept their government mandated reduced rates for doctors.  Good luck with that... LOL

St. Croix is badly confused.   Here's an intended consequence of a very stupid Congress, predominantly the GOP in Congress.  One of the GOP Congressmen from Texas who is an FP physician has been working on stopping this for years.  It's called "the Doc Fix" and it's a $340 billion problem that currently the Tea Party stupids who dictate to Boehner are refusing to fix.  This problem that ATLDAWG posed with physicians no longer seeing CMS beneficiaries--mainly primary care physicians as well as a growing number of  surgeons in different specialties has well has NOTHING to do with Obamacare.  It has been actually going on since a law passed by Congress in 1997, and in 1997 Obama
was sworn into his first term in the Illinois Senate and you never heard of him.  ACA passed in 2010 and you never heard of it before then.  It really goes into effect in 2014, despite the huffing puffing, pissing and moaning of the GOP and morons like Governor Nathan Deal who have put Emory and Morehouse's Grady in danger of going out of business by stupidly rejecting $40 billion in Medicaid expansion funds.  There are a panoply of other  Southern governors who are jeapordizing their major teaching hospitals for med students and residents by doing the same thing.

Currently the Tea Party crazies in the House who dictate to Boehner have rejected a permanat "doc fix."  So Medicare patients who make call after call finding their physicians are no longer seeing them have the crazy Tea Party to thank in very big part.

As to concierge medicine, a lot of us practice at those levels but the concierge docs see a lot fewer patients and they charge rates that only the very affluent can afford out of their pockets mainly, so that's not much of a solution for most of the population.

Mari has not painted an accurate picture of the preventive services component of the ACA either.   It does not exclude EKGs from annual physicals done as preventive medicine, and I previously linked a more detailed account as well as responded to the question raised about colonoscopy and polyps.

Thanks to ATLDAWG for highlighting a growing problem that is becoming a very big concern to CMS beneficiaries and docs as well. It is an insipidly stupid problem that gets little publicity outside of controlled circulation sent to docs, but is well known to physicians.  The media rarely covers it except to say things like "a patch to the doc fix will be included for two months".  If your salary were cut 60% or threatened to be cut, and 2 month patches were in place to prevent this, you'd find some other place to work or to make a living.  Physicians have been forced to quit seeing CMS beneficiaries/Medicare patients in response to this.

 I've explained and linked the problem below, but I'll cut to the chase at the top of this post.  Can you run your business or keep your job with a 60% pay cut?  The answer is hell no.  That's what Congress has proposed to do to doctors, and they keep avoiding this insane situation that would end Medicare with patches called the "doc fix" every two months.  Doctors are not going to put up with this, and neither would you so they have begun in exponentially growing numbers to stop seeing CMS beneficiaries all together or at least stop taking new patients and Congress is imposing this stupid problem on people like ATLDAWG.

I have to say emphatically though that this problem  of most primary care physicians in Atlanta and else ware (including FP's and Internists) not seeing new Medicare patients, even those who have supplemental insurance since Medicare covers 80% of Part B has  nothing to do with ACA/Obamacare.  It was in motion well before Obamacare was a gleam in anyone's eye.

Every problem with medical access and medical coverage cannot and should not unless you want to be dead wrong be laid at the feet of Obamacare, and for the record Obamacare will help with this problem to a degree in that it offers free preventive exams and treatments that weren't offered previously.  90% of Obamacare is not up and running until 2014 and yet ATLDAWG faces a wide spread problem--and he has the absolute right to a free annual exam.

There are physicians who are FPs and Internists in ATLDAWG's  city who are still taking medicare patients but their are considerably less than 10 years ago.  Why?  I'll tell you.

The "doc fix" aka the 15 year old SGR (Sustainable Growth  Rate)

 If you access www.amanews.com you can follow the fiasco. I have linked articles on the root of the problem in at least a dozen posts the past 12 months or so.  Just Google SGR AMA News and several articles will acquaint you with it in depth.  I'll summarize the situation.  
It can be summarized in 3 words: Congress Passing Buck

The problem behind the refusal to take new CMS patients is from Congress' typical procrastination dating from 1997 to solve a long standing problem officially called the SGR or Sustained Growth Rate.  When it is briefly talked about in the media it's superficially referred to as "the doc fix."
 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicare_Sustainable_Growth_Rate

As the link says, instead of dealing with the problem Congress passed a law with a complex formula that makes CMS reduce spending.  CMS knows it's Congress' responsibility.  The person tasked with this is a lawyer, the #2 ranking person at CMS Jon Miller.  Jon and his staff are having none of this passed responsibility so they have for 15 years put it right back in Congress' yellow bellied lap by making the cuts in physician reimbursement.  The total of the cut to the already 65% would be 31% with the current pending sequester that Republicans passed and now are running away from in horror because it would cut the bloated defense budget and things like obsolete F-35s made in Marietta Georgia at Lockheed that Saxby Chambliss and Johnny Issacson want made anyway because pissing money away is fine if it means jobs in your home district.  This has always been the moronic mantra of Congress.

That would mean docs get paid 45% of their normal fee.  They can't run their practices with that kind of reimbursement so they elect to refuse to see Medicare patients and that is painful to the doc and a ridiculous obstacle for a patient in a city like Atlanta for  ATLDAWG.

Medicare already reimburses MDs at roughly 65-70% of comprehensive insurance at best.  When you have supplemental insurance that helps, but still 80% of the payment is 65% of what it would be if you had 100% comprehensive premium insurance instead of Medicare.  Most physicians these days operate on a very narrow margin of profit given the cost of staff, increasingly expensive and highly sophisticated equipment including lab equipment, overhead, and the increasing cost of going digital/electronic for records.

The margin is so narrow that they would  lose money, particularly with respect to Medicare beneficiaries who don't have supplemental insurance but including the ones who do.  The threat currently as I write this is detailed here.  This was the headline in AMA News physicians received dated 1/14/13 or this past Monday.

http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2013/01/07/gvl10107.htm

See also this link:


http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2012/01/02/edca0102.htm

To add insult to injury, stupidly Congress has threatened your care further by saying that if two imaging procedures are done in the same day, the second will be reimbursed at 50%.  Let me show you how stupid that is.

Suppose someone is in an auto accident and suffers head trauma and a crushing chest injury.

If an MRI is done of the head, and a CT of the chest, then one of these expensive procedures gets reimbursed at 50%.  That's the reduction of imaging services in the article by $800 million.  Additionally dialysis is reduced by $44.9 billion.

-- Modified on 1/17/2013 3:11:52 AM

This  refusal to see new Medicare patients or any Medicare patients  has been going on in Atlanta suburbs and the City for several years in fact.  It's growing due to the failure of Congress to do a permanent "doc fix" as I explained in detail in a post I just made, and the bizarre and stupid Tea Party who dictates to Boehner is behind that in the House.  It has been going on in most other cities large and small for several years.  I've explained it above in detail and previously pretty well. It has nothing to do with ACA/Obamacare. The genesis of not seeing Medicare patients has to do with a proposed 60% cut to physician reimbursement since CMS reimbursement is already 65% of premium insurance for the physician fee and proposals for imaging are absurd (many times trauma patients need more than one CT in a day if not an hour).  This is not unusual for major trauma including auto accident victims who are brought into ERs 24X7.

The SGR began by an Act of Congress in 1997 and every year since then physician reimbursement has been threatened to cut the 65% by rougly 25-30% of that as I outlined in the post prior to this one.

People are always frightened of programs they don't understand and pwilley and the GOP are typical.

I don't think you're a liar pwilley you're just hopelessly confused, and refuse to read what I spoonfeed you. I told you explicitly how the colonoscopy gets paid for.  See Modifier 33 previous post.

The best idea is the bill Jan Schakowsky has just introduced for the public option.  It's what should have passed in the first place and it saves $100 billion over ten years and does not block a scintilla of care.  

http://bit.ly/UvuCGF

I see pwilley was unable to read or understand what I explained and linked about Modifier 33 and getting a colonoscopy.  50% of colonoscopy has one or more of some sized adenomatous polyp.  I not only linked how a physician can get the colonoscopy paid for without costing the patient a co-pay and I linked a review article on colon polyps.

pwilley continues to be the board's self appointed confused hapless bitcher who refuses to read or absorb facts and seems to have no connection to understand how to get  the medicine he needs except to flounder>bitch>flounder>bitch>flounder in a vicious cycle, and I feel sorry for him.  You can lead a horse to water and explain to the horse, but you can't make the horse drink.  Meanwhile hospital outpatient GI suites are filled with patients getting their colonoscopy paid for, and ACA takes care of EKGs as part of a free annual physical.

-- Modified on 1/17/2013 4:32:57 AM

Most Doctors accept Medicare patients without question because it's almost 60-75% of their practice. FYI, most people who use or overuse the health care system are over 65 yrs.  For Medicaid I will agree this is true, the reimbursement rates are so low many Doctors refuse to accept new Medicaid patients.  

except one hired by the hospital FMG physician will.  That's just not the case of primary care physicians in the ATL and many orthopedic surgery practices, and surgical subspecialties are not. I talk with them day in and day out.  I don't know where you got your facts salonpas--perhaps from the Ashanti school of medicine?

Salonpas confused Medicaid with Medicare at one point --no doubt a typo but the vast majority of MDs don't accept Medicaid patients and haven't for years.  When I last saw one who was very mentally challenged at the favor to a state DFCS worker, I had to donate the lab work and cost of the Pap smear because Medicaid reimbursed me literally next to nothing.  It was just one more good deed along with all the thousands of phone calls I took from people repeatedly asking for advice or indigent people treated for free with no insurance that a lot of us do for the privilege of taking care of people.

If you think most primary care physicians in the ATL take new Medicare patients just call ten and see what repsonce you get.  Tell the receptionist your a CMS beneficiary at the start of the conversation.

Every day surgeons are making the choice to refuse to see new or any Medicare patients now and again it is because of the failure of Congress since 1997 to fix the SGR or "doc fix" except by doing stupid 11th hour 2 to 6 month fixes like the 60 day kick the can down the road currently in place.

As I linked:

Medicare pay reprieve in place; next threat is 2% cut in March
http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2013/01/07/gvl10107.htm

MDs and other health providers are sick and tired of having a sword hanging over their heads caused by a stupid bunch of Republicans in the House,  and reluctantly have elected to put the sword in the dumpster.  This includes many MDs who are Republicans, most of whom don't begin to understand the ACA but who will in a couple years.

-- Modified on 1/17/2013 11:08:12 AM