Doctors aren’t accepting new patients with private insurance either
28th June 2011
They examined data from a representative sample pf physicians. Specifically, they looked at how often physicians accepted new patients by insurance type and year.
What did they find? The overall acceptance rate of new patients was pretty static from 2005-2008, going from 94.2% to 95.3%. The percentage of physicians accepting new Medicare patients dropped from 95.5% from 92.9% (about 2.5%). But here’s the thing. There was a bigger drop in physician acceptance of patients with private noncapitated insurance from 93.3% to 87.8% (about 5.5%). In fact, they found that over 90% of physicians accepted new Medicare patients. Reports of reimbursement rates driving away physicians may be more anecdotal than widespread.
And who could blame them?