A NEW Medicare-cost-cutting effort that will pay neurologists less for some procedures has the whole profession up in arms, but that doesn’t mean the new policy is wrong. Similar disagreements are likely to occur with some frequency over the next few years, as the Affordable Care Act goes forward and Medicare officials — necessarily — focus more and more on curbing health care costs.
As the Globe’s Chelsea Conaboy reportedly recently, the neurologists are upset over a reduction in the amount Medicare will pay for testing nerves. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services will be cutting reimbursements for some tests in half, and with good reason. Neurologists bill for each nerve tested, but the charge per nerve includes costs that occur only once during an appointment, such as the time a doctor spends greeting a patient and explaining the procedure. A doctor who tests more than one nerve in a visit, as often happens, is effectively paid multiple times for the same slice of time.
Comments
This the beginning of a process that will make health care more difficult to find. Price controls like this one, will inevitably lead to shortages. Any doctor who is forced to take a loss will stop serving patients who are using Medicare. No, it is not a "calamity". But it is the inevitable outcome, as the laws of economics are still in effect, even after the president's win assures that the ACA will be implemented.
Better check with your nice private insurer to see what they will and won't pay for. The private insurance companies depend for their existence on denying care and insuring a healthier population. Medicare, at least, takes on all comers, provides wider benefits to ensure good treatment, and decides by study how to reduce unneeded or overpaid procedures. Of course none of this tackles the real cost problem namely a bloated bureaucracy that results in uneven pricing for the same services and the need to put big players meaning hospitals on a budget. Maybe then with lower office or administrative costs physicians would not have to make poor choices how they earn their income.
The Obamacare is focused on giving Health Care to all but unequally and NO consequences for not following recommend treatment by Doctors There are zero codes to use only rules applied by politicans that are unread .Is there ever anything this current administrartion can do that benifits the working public and the laid off,unemloyed or the elderly that is benifical money wise to them. Is there anything that politicans and government does that is benefical to this country?........or only to give to the have nots from the few haves....that well will run dry under the socialistic policies and practices deemed in the name of CHANGE.