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I know it has been mentioned before here but if you plan to move in retirement, before you do, please check into how hard it might be to find a primary care physician taking NEW medicare patients in your new town/city. If you see a specialist regularly, you need to inquire about that, too.
Here's a story about Texas:
"Two years after a survey found nearly half of Texas doctors weren't taking some new Medicare patients, new data shows 100 to 200 a year are now ending all involvement with the program. Before 2007, the number of doctors opting out averaged less than a handful a year."
I know people that signed up for a Advantage plan just to get a doctor. And the new Health Care laws will reduce funding for Advantage.
Meanwhile increasing costs and changing insurance is reducing the number of doctors available and certainly reducing the number of independant practices...
'Doctors, meanwhile, are selling their practices to local hospitals. In 2005, doctors owned more than two-thirds of all medical practices. By next year, more than 60% of physicians will be salaried employees. About a third of those will be working for hospitals, according to the American Medical Association'
I know people that signed up for a Advantage plan just to get a doctor. And the new Health Care laws will reduce funding for Advantage.
Meanwhile increasing costs and changing insurance is reducing the number of doctors available and certainly reducing the number of independant practices...
'Doctors, meanwhile, are selling their practices to local hospitals. In 2005, doctors owned more than two-thirds of all medical practices. By next year, more than 60% of physicians will be salaried employees. About a third of those will be working for hospitals, according to the American Medical Association'
It is often easier to spread the cost and liability out over a larger group than the individual. There is efficiency of size in operating cost and that has been coming to play in the medical field for years. Individual practitioners have become medical groups/associates and mid size practices absorbed by larger ones.
What about if your Medicare is secondary? I'm on disability, on medicare, but its secondary to my dh insurance. I'm afraid to even file on medicare for the balance after my primary pays, for fear the doctor will not want me as a medicare patient, even though its secondary.
I've been told I wouldn't get much for filing on medicare secondary, anyways, because medicare considers what they would have allowed, decuct what the primary paid, then pay the difference, but many times what medicare would have allowed is less than what the primary paid, anyways, so medicare's portion is zero.
If your secondary is medicare, do doctors reject you?
Doctors opting out of Medicare in some areas can also be a result of them evaluating and deciding what ethnic groups they will now be serving and is that consistent with the type of practice they desire. Doctors previously could limit their clientele by not taking medicaid and thus avoiding the poor etc etc etc (immigrants)etc etc etc. However now with the expanding Medicare back door they will become more restrictive and seniors will get caught in the crossfire. Will social workers in urban areas with a doctor shortage have van pools to doctors in the suburbs?
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.
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.
Remember we have taken patients who previously might have been in the Medicaid funnel and are placing them in the Medicare funnel. Doctors who previously turned down Medicaid may now do the same to Medicare. They can't age discriminate so they turn down all. If you are planning to relocate you might want to avoid areas with a large number of immigrants and poor people.
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.
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