Texas doctors opting out of Medicare at alarming rate

[TuborgP]

Originally Posted by Minervah

Same in Portland according to my doctor. I will be eligible for Medicare next year and I asked her if she will take it. She said yes but many, many doctors she knows will not.

I once quit a doctor I had been seeing for years because she decided to charge an extra fee at the beginning of the year. The older the patient, the higher the fee. I would have had to pay $1000 upfront as keniaz says just for the "privilege of just staying with his office."

Yeah like that would ever happen.

With time it may be worth while and just a product of medical costs. Think about it. The fee will not be covered by Medicare and if you can't afford it you won't be seen by that practice thus controlling who is seen there and that may be worth it to you. As a Transplant I have had doctors who required a fee up front on deposit. I have not had to pay it and always had it waived based on something in their research. May be credit score if they are doing that. It is interesting as you will have to pay it if waived if reimbursement is late or you fail to pay the patient liability in a timely manner.

[Minervah]

Originally Posted by TuborgP

With time it may be worth while and just a product of medical costs. Think about it. The fee will not be covered by Medicare and if you can't afford it you won't be seen by that practice thus controlling who is seen there and that may be worth it to you. As a Transplant I have had doctors who required a fee up front on deposit. I have not had to pay it and always had it waived based on something in their research. May be credit score if they are doing that. It is interesting as you will have to pay it if waived if reimbursement is late or you fail to pay the patient liability in a timely manner.

quote=TuborgP;14429829]With time it may be worth while and just a product of medical costs. Think about it. The fee will not be covered by Medicare and if you can't afford it you won't be seen by that practice thus controlling who is seen there and that may be worth it to you. As a Transplant I have had doctors who required a fee up front on deposit. I have not had to pay it and always had it waived based on something in their research. May be credit score if they are doing that. It is interesting as you will have to pay it if waived if reimbursement is late or you fail to pay the patient liability in a timely manner.[/quote]

The doctor who was charging the fee was charging everyone both new and old patients. It wasn't just an upfront fee. It didn't have anything to do with credit scores or late payment. It's just something she decided to buy into.

If you never see the doctor, you don't get a refund either. The so-called benefits were that you would not have to wait for an appointment, you could email your doctor any time and other perks. My doctor would not see anyone who didn't pay the yearly fee.

[SIZE=3] [/SIZE]Here's a description of this kind of practice. As the last paragraphs show, this system hurts the less well-off patients.

Doctors switch to 'concierge' practices

[TuborgP]

Originally Posted by Minervah

quote=TuborgP;14429829]With time it may be worth while and just a product of medical costs. Think about it. The fee will not be covered by Medicare and if you can't afford it you won't be seen by that practice thus controlling who is seen there and that may be worth it to you. As a Transplant I have had doctors who required a fee up front on deposit. I have not had to pay it and always had it waived based on something in their research. May be credit score if they are doing that. It is interesting as you will have to pay it if waived if reimbursement is late or you fail to pay the patient liability in a timely manner.

The doctor who was charging the fee was charging everyone both new and old patients. It wasn't just an upfront fee. It didn't have anything to do with credit scores or late payment. It's just something she decided to buy into.

If you never see the doctor, you don't get a refund either. The so-called benefits were that you would not have to wait for an appointment, you could email your doctor any time and other perks. My doctor would not see anyone who didn't pay the yearly fee.

[SIZE=3] [/SIZE]Here's a description of this kind of practice. As the last paragraphs show, this system hurts the less well-off patients.

Doctors switch to 'concierge' practices[/quote]

That is my point. It hurts the not well off patient so they avoid that practice and for the doctor and his desired patients=problem solved.

[texdav]

Actaully this has been a probelm in many sates for years,even finding a primary care physician.Specialist not so much really.Butr then its getting harder even with insurance to find a primary care physician with normal medical insurance too.my doctor is in his late 30's and now takes no new patients unless they are related to a existing patient.Bascially he can't handle a larger preactices and more and more are going into specialist fields he says to avoid the high cost of running a primary care practices at a office.

[Minervah]

Originally Posted by TuborgP

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That is my point. It hurts the not well off patient so they avoid that practice and for the doctor and his desired patients=problem solved.

Yeah, I dropped by about a year later to say hello to the old doctor's nurse who had been with her for 15 years. I was told she no longer worked for this doctor. The receptionist told me where the nurse had gone; another office in that building.

So I went over to her new job and we went to lunch. Here is how she told me it all worked out and why she quit her former job. The people who could not afford the fee dropped out and it was heartbreaking for some because they had been with this doctor for a long time. This was especially the story of older patients on Medicare and fixed income people.

Then there were the drop-outs like me who had good insurance but just could not justify or afford the extra cost charged just for this one doctor.

All these patient drop-outs depressed her but what really mad her decide to quit were the people who stayed. They were the wealthy patients who didn't care about the fee. But having paid it, they felt they were entitled to special privileges above and beyond those offered by the plan. They became very demanding and treated her like a servant. They were often rude. She said although some of them weren't the most pleasant people to begin with, once they paid this concierge fee they became unbearable.

When word went out she was looking for a new job, she got lots of offers and was happy the one she chose was in the same medical building. She was unhappy about leaving her former employer but she just couldn't take what was going on.

[KevK]

Originally Posted by keninaz

We just changed doctors due to his office charging $300 a year per person for the privilege of just staying with his office. I don't think so.
Just shy of Medicare here, but we found out in our search for a new doctor that many here in AZ are not taking any new Medicare patients at all. We have our own medical plan right now but of course Medicare becomes primary at 65.
It's going to be a problem as the leading edge of the baby boomers like me retire and make age 65! It would appear that a vast number of doctors are not going to accept patients and in some cases around here are refusing to care for patients that become eligible for Medicare.

It is not that big of a problem. We just need to open immigration to more doctors from other parts of the world. They would love to come here. Most of the doctors here in GA take it but in some retirement meccas I can see why docs do not wish to be overrun by Medicare patients. I know some of them limit Medicare to a certain percentage of their total patients.