Quote:
Originally Posted by ssmith
Again what I meant to enforce is that Cardiology has been hit the hardest of all specialty groups. Medicare has cut reimbursement across the board 40%. I reviewed this today with our head Cardiologist.
The problem is that there is no fat to cut in Cardiology. We don't order tests that are not needed or do procedures that are not needed. Cardiolgists are not Cardiovascular surgeons and so they do not get paid the big bucks of a surgeon. They do Cardiac Catheterizations and stents and some peripheral cardiovascular and or renal stents. All of which are only done if needed.
What my group has done is join a large umbrella goup that is a part of our local hospital. This umbrella group then takes up the slack from other groups to keep them floating. The end result was that no one lost jobs or had to cut services.
This has nothing to do with the upcoming changes in Health Reform. It is in effect today- started Jan 1.
My point is to shed light on the original post regarding the letter they received from their Cardiologist.
Hope this has cleared up some of the misunderstanding. This is why I don't see this as political.
Thanks
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TOTV"ers... I want to reinforce a very important part of this post: "THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH UPCOMING CHANGES IN HEALTH REFORM". This issus is and has been an ANNUAL issue Congress faced at the end of every year for many years. Rather than fix the problem correctly, every year around Dec 15th, at the 11th hour, Congress did a patch job to get through another year so physician providers did not face a huge reimbursement cut. Congress realized (correctly) that in most parts of the country, physicians would simply STOP participating as medicare providers if their reimbursement for services was severely cut. It appears that what happened this year was that Congress was so wrapped up in other issues that the "patch job" did not occur. Do NOT confuse this thread with Health Care Reform. Medicare reimbursement will deteriorate to what Medicaid is in most states. As such, most private practitioners offices may soon be saying to pts who call for services: "I'm sorry, we do not accept Medicare ins in this office."
It doesn't take a PhD in accounting or economics to recognize that if your expenses (rent, malpractice ins, utilities, payroll) stay the same or GO UP and your collections go DOWN 40% you wont stay in business very long.