Davey, you won't be alone, lots of people will be losing their doctors. What you described is the wave of the future because I can tell you from personally talking to several of my doctors that they are fed up with the bureaucracy and the lowered revenue by the flood of Medicaid patients into the system, and mandates on what patient care they can use to treat patients. In addition, complying with the physician mandates is raising the cost of running their practice, and taking time from patients.
For instance my ophthalmologist told my husband if he wants to get the cataract in his other eye done he needed to do it before Jan. 1, because under the new Medicare rules they will only pay for only one cataract surgery, as long as a person has vision in one eye, they are considered to have adequate vision. This doctor has a large practice and has his own out patient surgery clinic next door to his office. This will effectively cut his income in half as most of his practice is cataract surgery.
I was told by my orthopedic surgeon that Medicare will be denying a lot of hip and knee replacement surgeries depending on the persons age and weight. If you are overweight you will be required to lose weight before being authorized for replacement. Difficult to do if you are elderly and cannot move because of pain. You will be made to hobble around until you die I guess. This will impact the income of the orthopedic surgeons, as many of their patients will not qualify.
Since Obummercare kicked in in 2010, I have not had serious eye contact with any of my doctors as they are so busy entering everything I say and all kinds of information into their laptops that it's almost impossible to have a patient-doctor relationship. This information regarding treatment, diagnosis, any personal information you give out is being kept in a central database and will follow you from doctor to doctor, wherever you go. Not one of our doctors have had a good word to say about the law.
While it's true that many doctors started forming private membership practices some time ago, this is a result of them trying to get ahead of the ACA and not getting bogged down in this quagmire. While most people are just now paying attention to what is going on because of the disastrous website problems, and the personal mandates coming into effect, the problems have been ongoing on the doctor's administrative side since the beginning 2010 when the bill kicked in. The doctors have been required to be on board with converting their computers and programs over to the government version as soon as the bill was signed, and be fully up to speed with all laws by this January.
So, yes, you will begin to see more doctors retiring or becoming membership driven practices and fewer doctors will accept Medicare and Medicaid assignments. A lot of doctors are closing their practice to new patients as well. This closes the door on a lot of people being able to get affordable, timely health care.
The vast majority of the people who have signed up for the ACA qualify for Medicaid, another point for debate some other time. This gives many low income people insurance but how they will get treatment is a question. Also, at risk are Medicare patients who will have a hard time finding doctors if they lose their current doctor, or need specialist care. Both Medicare and Medicaid pay much less than free market insurance companies.
Here is a good article written by a doctor. You can ignore the partisan slant and concentrate on the explanation of Medicare and Medicaid payments and how they are affecting your health care.
http://www.theihcc.com/en/communiti...bad-for-doctors-awful-for-patie_gn17y01k.html
I know that most on this board have not had to deal with getting insurance from the exchange and have private, employer or Medicare insurance so have had no reason to be concerned with the Insurance Exchange and complying with the personal mandate. But, when all this kicks in in January, I guarantee you will begin to see changes in the way your doctors practice medicine and the care you will get, and what you will pay.
This bill will affect everyone who has need for medical care and/or insurance, regardless of how you are currently insured. For a start check out your deductibles and out of pocket costs on your policy for 2014 compared to last year.
Good luck finding a new doctor, Davey, and I mean that sincerely.
