Availability of Medicaid Doctors

Posted on December 10, 2014 by admin

• Half of doctors listed as serving Medicaid patients are unavailable, investigation finds, By Robert Pear, December 8, 2014, New York Times: “Large numbers of doctors who are listed as serving Medicaid patients are not available to treat them, federal investigators said in a new report. ‘Half of providers could not offer appointments to enrollees,’ the investigators said in the report, which will be issued on Tuesday. Many of the doctors were not accepting new Medicaid patients or could not be found at their last known addresses, according to the report from the inspector general of the Department of Health and Human Services. The study raises questions about access to care for people gaining Medicaid coverage under the Affordable Care Act…”
• Report: Many U.S. Medicaid doctors often unavailable, By Bill Toland and Kate Giammarise, December 10, 2014, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: “A new federal report suggesting a substantial percentage of U.S. doctors who are supposed to see Medicaid patients are unable or unavailable to do so bolsters outgoing Republican Gov. Tom Corbett’s claim that Pennsylvania’s working poor could be better served with private health insurance coverage. In a report issued Tuesday, the U.S. Office of the Inspector General found that ‘slightly more than half of providers could not offer appointments to enrollees.’ Medicaid enrollees are supposed to select their doctors from a list of providers connected to each Medicaid managed care plan…”
• Doctors face steep Medicaid cuts as fee boost ends, By Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar (AP), December 10, 2014, ABC News: “Primary care doctors caring for low-income patients will face steep fee cuts next year as a temporary program in President Barack Obama’s health care law expires. That could squeeze access just when millions of new patients are gaining Medicaid coverage. A study Wednesday from the nonpartisan Urban Institute estimated fee reductions will average about 40 percent nationwide. But they could reach 50 percent or more for primary care doctors in California, New York, New Jersey, and Illinois – big states that have all expanded Medicaid under the health law…”