One in Five Physicians Say No to New Medicare Patients

By John R. Graham,

If you learned that 93 percent of non-pediatric primary care physicians took Medicare patients and 94 percent took patients with private insurance, you would likely conclude that Medicare is doing just fine.

Unfortunately, such data do not describe physicians’ behavior at the margin, which is what will determine future access to Medicare. The Kaiser Family Foundation/Commonwealth Fund 2015 National Survey of Primary Care Providers also asks which physicians are not accepting new patients: 21 percent are not taking new Medicare patients and 14 percent are not taking new privately insured patients. That is, the proportion not taking new Medicare patients is 1.5 times greater than the proportion not taking new privately insured patients.

… even this level of detail indicates baby boomers aging in to Medicare will have increasingly difficult access to care. The idea of premium support (whereby Medicare beneficiaries receive subsidies to choose lightly regulated private plans), which NCPA advocates, should become more politically acceptable – if not unavoidable. – See more at: http://healthblog.ncpa.org/one-in-five-doctors-say-no-new-medicare-patients/#sthash.wf9qqLI6.dpuf

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