Study: Medicare pay cuts would worsen access woes

But CMS head says physician pay reduction is not "a national crisis."

By Markian Hawryluk, AMNews staff. Sept. 23/30, 2002.

Washington -- If left unchecked, deep cuts in Medicare physician payments could exacerbate a growing access problem for both Medicare and private-pay patients, according to a recent study.

Researchers from the Center for Studying Health System Change found that the percentage of Medicare beneficiaries who reported delaying or not getting needed physician care had risen from 9.1% in 1997 to 11% in 2001. Those results largely mirror other survey findings.

The study, however, is the first to report that patients between 50 and 64 are having problems with access to physicians. Researchers found that 18.4% of the near-elderly experienced difficulty in seeing a physician in 2001, up from 15.2% in 1997. About 40% of Medicare beneficiaries reported having to wait at least a week for an appointment to treat an illness, while 36.3% of the near-elderly reported similar difficulties. And the number of physicians accepting all new patients from both groups fell over the past four years.

"Americans of all ages are having more trouble seeing a doctor," said the center's president, Paul Ginsburg, PhD. "Reduced access to physician services is not just a Medicare problem, it's a system-wide problem."

According to Sally Trude, PhD, HSC senior researcher and the co-author of the study, it's still unclear what prompted the access problem prior to the Medicare cuts this year. It may be due to a loosening of managed care restrictions on access to specialists and, in many cases, first-dollar coverage, she said. [...]