Adam,
Perhaps physicians need to unionize and have collective bargaining. Medicare does what it does at 3.5% above the cost of services. If there is only ONE PAYER there is only one person to bargain with. No one has the time to bargain with 25 different payers.
I am sorry, but your believe is not borne out my current experience. We have found Medicare to be MORE EFFICIENT BY FAR, than any of the OTHER PAYERS.
For example, we began the "registration process" on July 15 for a practice that was to Open Oct 1. Medicare was the only payer who processed the our agreement on time. The others CIGNA, United, Aetna, BCBS for some strange reason were not able to make the changes before Nov 1. This means that we now have to APPEAL all the claims we submitted in October, EVEN THOUGH THE DELAY was THEIR FAULT. How difficult can it be to change the tax id of a physician, especially for one who has been a provider in your system for 20 years?
I am not convinced that MedMal is part of the reason costs are high. The average cost of MedMal for an internist is $17,500.00. The problem I believe lies in the reimbursement.
