PITTSBURGH POST GAZETTE EDITORIAL: Amid the good news about Americans’ enhanced access to health care, there is bad news as well: A new report by the Department of Health and Human Services says that half of the doctors who are supposedly enrolled in the Medicaid program of low-income health care either aren’t accepting new patients or aren’t participating in the Medicaid plans that list them.
One reason is that for years doctors were paid significantly less to treat Medicaid patients than customers with other forms of insurance, including Medicare.
Last year, the Affordable Care Act expanded Medicaid access to 6 million poor Americans. To increase the number of doctors who are willing to see enrollees, the law raised for 2013 and 2014 the primary-care physicians’ reimbursement rate for Medicaid patients to the same rates they receive for treating Medicare patients. That higher level of compensation has now expired… (more)
