More and more patients in America rely on Medicare to cover their healthcare as they age. Medicare provides health insurance coverage for 20% of the U.S. population, totaling approximately 67 million adults. But sometimes, patients are unable to find physicians because Medicare reimbursement rates are too low to cover their healthcare expenses, as physicians claim.
Physicians usually avoid providing health care services to Medicare patients—those of 65 years or older and some younger people with disabilities. Because Medicare offers low reimbursement rates.
The Medicare reimbursements are even insufficient to cover practice costs. As a result, the doctors lose money on Medicare patients.
Furthermore, it also causes a decrease in revenue for healthcare practices as they likely treat fewer patients because of low Medicare reimbursement rates for physicians.
However, while some doctors do not lose money on Medicare patients, they often face challenges affecting their performance of practice sustainability, and they face financial strains.