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With the politicians failing us again, is anyone considering dropping out of Medicare? We only have until December 31 to do so. And if we choose to drop out, we cannot get back in for 2 years. I am really nervous that the 28% Medicare cuts might actually happen this time.

you can start the opt out process every quarter

I really do believe this is going to be one of the unintended consequences of government meddling in healthcare is there will be a breaking point at which more Doctors are going to be better off not taking the government as a payer any longer.

Bureaucrats are so used to businesses fighting for access to a government teat, their model fails horribly when businesses do the math and say no instead.

There was a recent article about NYC Doctors that are refusing third party payers all together (I believe linked here); for a variety of reasons there will be more of this, not less.

Each year since the SGR legislation passed, the cost of fixing the problem has gone up. Right now we're on track for a 26.5% cut in reimbursement. Last year's temporary fix cost $18.5 billion. To "fix" the SGR problem for the next decade is estimated to cost between $244 and $370 billion. I don't see anyone in WA ponying up that kind of cash in this economy. On the other hand Medicare's 2013 budget calls for reimbursement cuts in some specialties and a 7% increase in FP rates. Could this be the year the temporary "doc fix" gets "lost" in all the other budget hoopla and Medicare justifies the resulting 19.5% reimbursement cut for FPs by saying it did "everything it could" by budgeting a 7% increase?

New business model, anyone?

Dave
FP

Once again we are all happy because we didn't get a raise.
I am sure we will go through this again next year.

There is plenty of money to fight a war....
It's all a matter of priority.

The government always seems to come up with funds for any project they decide has to be done, and the money always magically appears. How they do that is so complicated, that no mere mortal, let alone a doctor, could possibly ever understand.

Rec'd form letter yesterday from medicare reporting that medicare has found a way to justify an across the board 1.5% cut in my medicare reimburment b/c they say I wasn't properly prescribing e-prescriptions. Funny, they thought well enough of me previously to reward me for adopting an EMR which includes e-prescribing and documentation of its use. So medicare the left hand givith at the same time the right medicare hand takes away.
You know if you train a dog to jump through a hoop, you give him a little treat after he jumps to reward him and encourage him to keep jumping thru. But you slowly each time raise the height of the hoop a little bit which makes it a little harder each time, but you don't change the reward treat size or number.
Sooner or later, even a dog will tell to kiss his "___" and tell You to jump thru the hoop b/c it's too much work for such a little reward.
Nate