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Add to FavoritesI read in the newspaper recently that homeless people were being used, then dumped, so that three hospitals and doctors could fraudulantly benefit from Medicare and State money. They were busted when suspicious people finally called authorities. Medicare was cheated out of around a billion dollars making it hard on other doctors and hospitals who honestly want to make a decent living.
Medicare fraud hurts doctors and patients alike.
This also makes it hard on a patient to pay a Medicare premium. Mine is ninety-six dollars a month.
Whereas one doctor may bill a patient one amount, another may bill a patient a higher one. That is the reason for a doctor's and hospital's Medicare profile where they calculate the average and that is the amount they pay. No one doctor is paid a higher or lower amount and neither is a hospital, no matter what procedure the patient has been billed for.
The fraud I read about in the newspaper just flabberghasted me that someone would have the unmitigated gall to make it hard on other doctors, hospitals, and patients. But, this is true in any federal or state program designed to help American citizens who have worked hard and the caring doctors who will accept these payments rather than the full amount.
Some illegal aliens (according to a reliable source) have applied for state assistance under three or four different social security numbers amd received it. Does that explain some of Medicare's crackdown on doctors' profits? It's not fair to the doctors to have spent so many years going to school to be doctors, and sometimes, continuing on to specialize.
If everyone would walk the walk and talk the talk, then our country would be in A-1 shape.
Will it ever happen?
If we are not careful, there is going to be a physician shortage as well as too few nurses and what incentive, plus caring for human lives, would that be for a person to even consider medical school?
There is the question of whether Social Security will be available for our children when they reach retirement. Where is the money that has been paid in for them? In that billions of dollars that the hospitals and doctors defrauded Medicare by using those homeless people?
If U. S. money was kept in this country and not strewn about worldwide to countries that hate us in the first place, we would have beaucoup and not have to worry what is to become of our own children who are out working for a living and trying to make a decent world for their own children.
Definitely, the doctors and patients are not being treated fair.
I stand behind honest doctors and I consider anyone honest until I find out different.
Learn more about this author, VOLECIA PLAFCAN.
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Medicare's crackdown on doctors' profit is a kind of rationalization that will not hurt the patients simply because it creates no incentive for doctors to ignore their practise. Even if they are not able to charge as much as earlier, there is absolutely no reason for them not to attend to their patients.
By making the doctors accept Medicare patients at a lower fee, the standards of healthcare pricing may be brought down, or at least prevented to some extent from rising any further. Such control of healthcare pricing will actually help a lot of patients, even those who don't depend on Medicare.
ECONOMICS OF MEDICARE CRACKDOWN ON DOCTORS' PROFITS
Economists call it 'marginal cost' and 'marginal revenue.' These concepts are necessary for understanding how Medicare's actions will affect us.
The marginal cost, for the doctor, is the cost of providing services to one more patient. Since most of the overheads are fixed, like cost of building (investments or rent), equipment, assisting staff, utilities and professional costs like those incurred on medical education and licensing etc, so these costs will have to be incurred by the physician even if she treats one patient less. These are sunk costs. So, the real 'marginal' cost of seeing one more patient is just the cost of the doctor's time. Now if there is some other patient (not covered by Medicare) ready to pay a higher fee to the doctor, then the Medicare patient may have to wait. The reason is that the 'opportunity cost' of doctor's time has increased - by treating the Medicare patient, he stands to lose the higher fees offered by the other patient. But once there is no other patient, the opportunity costs are not very high, so he chooses to see the Medicare patient, even for a lower fee.
The net effect is that the Medicare patient may have to wait, but she will get the treatment, at a lesser cost, without hurting either the doctor (who is still making a profit) or anybody else. As you see, it definitely helps the patient.
MEDICARE PAYMENTS AS INDUSTRY BENCHMARK
Another reason why this is helpful for the patients in the long run is because it creates a benchmark price that acts as a signal for the medical community, and creates an incentive for them to cut costs and become economically efficient. In some quarters, there has been a myth that the basic concepts of economics are not exactly applicable on the doctors and hospitals. But that is just a myth. In reality, the principles are just as applicable.
When forced to cut costs, the doctors will end up using their resources in a more efficient way, including time, and every one will benefit from their efficiency, most of all, the patients.
THE IMPERFECT MARKET OF HEALTHCARE CAN NOT BE LEFT ON MARKET FORCES
Lastly, one needs to remind oneself about the fact that the market of medical care is full of several imperfections, which prevent it from having the usual free market dynamics and market efficiency derived from demand - supply matching.
The medical and health care market suffers from information gaps between buyer (patient) and supplier (doctor). It is supplier (doctor) driven. Lastly, the medical care is a 'merit good' that we want every human being to have. In short, medical care market is very different from any other market. The inherent distortions in this market justify the intervention that comes in the form of Medicare's crackdown on doctors' profit.
Learn more about this author, V. Kumar.
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