MedPAC staff regularly survey a sample of Medicare beneficiaries and privately insured patients to determine whether they are having problems getting to see a physician. In the latest survey, about 30% of Medicare beneficiaries who were looking for a new primary care physician in 2017 reported either a big or a small problem in finding a doctor, compared with 40% of privately insured patients seeking a new doctor, MedPAC senior analyst Kate Bloniarz reported on Thursday.
“Private insurance payment rates are significantly higher than Medicare, and have grown significantly faster [in the] past decade, but they don’t seem to make a difference in patient-reported access to care,” she said. If they had, “we would have expected to see improvement in access for privately insured patients relative to Medicare, but that doesn’t seem to be happening.”
In addition, the small payment rates haven’t affected the supply of physicians willing to take Medicare patients, she said. “Despite the relatively modest updates for clinician services, the number of clinicians billing the program has steadily grown, keeping pace or outpacing fee-for-service enrollment. The number of primary care and other specialty physicians grew by 2% and 1.5% per year, respectively, from 2009 through 2016. The growth in direct billing by advance practice registered nurses and physician assistants was [also] quite robust, averaging over 10% per year … despite payment updates averaging 0.5%.”
Full story: https://www.medpagetoday.com/practicemanagement/reimbursement/74991