Cuts to Medicare: They say these would only affect providers...

but I think this is nonsense. If they cut payments to providers, people on Medicare will have trouble finding a doctor who will accept them as patients. Many doctors are already reluctant to. I expect the consequences of this would much worse than the spin.

Many providers will stop taking Medicare patients so that is a huge cut and a devastating issue for seniors. I am scared for them and for future seniors.

They don't want to take it. Oh, but they WILL take PPO. OR they say YOU pay the entire cost up front, and you submit the claim to your insurance; as in, you pay what your insurance, or Medicare, doesn't pay.

Yes, providers will refuse to take patients, or ask them to pay up front themselves.

been fee adjustments to reflect the reality of what doctors need to collect to stay in business. Cutting more fees to providers will make the situation worse. Instead they will make seniors pay up in cash up front and let them negotiate with Medicare to get some of it back. Well off seniors will be able to but the rest won't be able to see a doctor if they can't find one that will take them.

The CLAIM one test is to verify the other's results, but if Medicare refused to pay for duplicates, I would agree that's good. I've heard docs say that "I don't worry if my income is own a little. All I have to do is schedule a few more patients to come back in two weeks instead of a month, or next month instead of in three months."

Last week I was at the docs and the nurse spent almost 10 minutes hunting for the "right form" to use to file the req. info for the Medicare form. NOTE: ALL were paper forms! I even commented that it was BS that there were different forms for each blood test! I told her #1. those forms should be computerized! #2 there should be ONE FORM for multiple functions! She agreed.

IF those are the kind of changes that are made, I have no problem at all.

Mon Aug 1, 2011 1:03pm EDT
(Reuters) - Shares of skilled nursing facilities plunged on Monday, after the U.S. government announced final reimbursement rate cuts that confirmed the market's worst fears, with little reprieve in sight.

On Friday, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) cut 2012 payments for skilled nursing facilities by 11.1 percent, or $3.87 billion.

-snip

The U.S. government has been under pressure to cut Medicare costs -- expected to nearly double in 10 years to $1.02 trillion -- as it grapples with mounting federal debt.

Analysts expect the industry to lobby the Congress to mitigate the loss but expect little to come out of that.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/01/us-skillednursing-shares-idUSTRE7704BO20110801?du


The plunging stock issue related to nursing facilities won't be who's really going to be hurt by this. Seniors and disabled people in these facilities will be the ones to suffer. The bottom lines will seek to recap their losses by cutting workforce (the people who take care of the seniors and disabled) and cutting services.

This isn't going to be a good situation, and it's just the beginning of the debt reduction assult on the American people.

:shrug:

The Congress is not supposed to WANT the triggers, after all.

The current deal does not require them, and the Democrats in Congress and the White House have shown they will not fight for them.

The six Dems will propose revenue increases, and the GOP WILL vote for them rather than face the triggers.

Let's bookmark this for December 23 o see who was right?

:hi:

The problem isn't entitlement cuts. The problem is the economy. No president (or his party) has been re-elected with an economy this bad. And any cuts _AT ALL_ make the economy worse.

Obama wants to penalize hospitals who keep admitting the same patients over and over and keep running the same expensive tests that Medicare pays for, but they aren't helping the patients get well.

I've seen this in my own family and I support this wholeheartedly.