Originally Posted by
drz
Clinics and hospitals do try to adapt to having lot of Medicare patients but their low payment rates have serious impact on quality and availability of health care.
I noticed cut backs at the clinics I use except Mayo due to lower reimbursement forced by Obamacare this year.
Years ago most of our small town hospitals and clinics were forced to close because of Medicare lower payment rates. In rural areas where most patients were retired and on Medicare most smaller towns lost their hospitals and many lost their clinics and ended up with reduced services.
This was done deliberately in interest of efficiency and to reduce the cost of medical care. The official rationale was that due to better technology and transportation and better trained EMT and ambulance services it was not necessary to have a hospital at every small town and having larger hospitals that could be better equipped and better staffed at a further location was more cost efficient and could also provide a better level of care.
So now people often have to do 50-100 miles to get health care that they used to get a few miles away. Many patients miss dealing with local people that knew them personally but hopefully they generally get better care even though the wait to get the services is often longer and lacks the more personal touch of dealing with some one who knows you.
My former boss who designed healthcare benefit plans said there are three factors to be considered when designing a health care plan: easy access, high quality, and low cost. You can only have two out of three...
Last edited by Pete; 06-05-2016 at 11:46 PM.
Pete
dx 1/11
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