California Academy of Family Physicians Video Web Cast: Medicare Cuts Threaten Patients' Access to Care
Posted on: Tuesday, 4 December 2007, 18:00 CST
Cuts to physician payment in the Medicare program scheduled for 2008 and 2009 may drive more physicians from the program, forcing elderly and disabled patients from accessing needed care, according to a new video Web cast from the California Academy of Family Physicians.
Unless Congress acts by the end of the year, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services will cut physician payment in the Medicare program 10.1 percent in 2008 and an additional 5 percent in 2009. The Medicare Board of Trustees projects these cuts could snowball to a 40-percent cut over the next nine years.
"The proposed cuts... really would be detrimental to family medicine and certainly to the health of this country," says Carla Kakutani, MD, president of the California Academy of Family Physicians.
The Medicare program provides care for 43 million elderly and disabled Americans, and with the aging Boomer population, these numbers are expected to rise rapidly over the next decade. The cuts are intended to control spending on physician services, but cutting physicians' fees does not reduce the demand for services.
"It scares me to think that as a result of these cuts," adds Dr. Kakutani, "there may not be a younger physician who wants to take care of me when I retire."
The planned payment cuts adversely affect access to care not just for seniors and the disabled, but for all Californians. This is because most health plans base their payment schedules on a percentage of Medicare; any decrease in Medicare payment results in decreased payment on the commercial side as well.
Increasing numbers of family physicians are saying that they can no longer afford to care for Medicare patients. In fact, an AMA survey found that if Medicare payment cuts were not reversed, more than a third (38 percent) of physicians would find it necessary to decrease the number of new Medicare patients they accept.
To draw attention to the Medicare program and the concerns of its primary health care providers -- including family physicians -- the California Academy of Family Physicians released its first Academy in Action video Web cast. View the complete video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcgUjq5kWLw.
About the California Academy of Family Physicians
Since 1948, CAFP has been analyzing and disseminating trends and information to assist California's family physicians in their practices. With more than 7,000 members, including active practicing family physicians, residents in family medicine, and medical students interested in the specialty, CAFP is the largest primary care medical society in California, and the largest chapter of the American Academy of Family Physicians. Family physicians are trained to treat an entire family's medical needs, addressing the whole spectrum of life's medical challenges. FPs serve a broad base of patients in urban, suburban and rural areas, often in California's most underserved areas.
Source: Business Wire
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