CNN - Money....the impending 27.4% Medicare pay cut for doctors. "If that goes through, it will put us under," he said. Federal law requires that Medicare reimbursement rates be adjusted annually based on a formula tied to the health of the economy. That law says rates should be cut every year to keep Medicare financially sound. Although Congress has blocked those cuts from happening 13 times over the past decade, most recently on Dec. 23 with a two-month temporary "patch," this dilemma continues to haunt doctors every year. Beau Donegan, senior executive with a hospital cancer center in Newport Beach, Calif., is well aware of physicians' financial woes. "Many are too proud to admit that they are on the verge of bankruptcy," she said. "These physicians see no way out of the downward spiral of reimbursement, escalating costs of treating patients and insurance companies deciding when and how much they will pay them." Donegan knows an oncologist "with a stellar reputation in the community" who hasn't taken a salary from his private practice in over a year. He owes drug companies $1.6 million, which he wasn't reimbursed for. Dr. Neil Barth is that oncologist. He has been in the top 10% of oncologists in his region, according to U.S. News Top Doctors' ranking. Still, he is contemplating personal bankruptcy. That move could shutter his 31-year-old clinical practice and force 6,000 cancer patients to look for a new doctor.
Please read more at:
http://money.cnn.com/2012/01/05/smallbusiness/doctors_broke/?elq_mid=5710&elq_cid=281360&code=3800&sc_cid=EMAIL:1-JanuaryNewsletter2-PC3-DoctorsGoingBroke4-text
Please read more at:
http://money.cnn.com/2012/01/05/smallbusiness/doctors_broke/?elq_mid=5710&elq_cid=281360&code=3800&sc_cid=EMAIL:1-JanuaryNewsletter2-PC3-DoctorsGoingBroke4-text
