With coverage in the New York Times and Wall Street Journal recently, the Texas Medical Association’s survey of primary care physicians’ reluctance to take new Medicare patients is getting lots of play. Certainly the economic and administrative hassle factors are there and make a big impact on physicians trying to keep open their practice.
What has been omitted, though, is the other major finding from our survey: Texas physicians will not refuse their current Medicare patients. Nearly 70 percent say that is something they will not do. Fewer than five percent say that is something they have done or will do.
As a family medicine specialist from Dallas said in response to our survey: “I will continue to provide care to my existing Medicare patients as a courtesy to them, but I will soon be closing my panel to new Medicare patients, because not doing so will jeopardize my ability to provide care to everyone else.”
Steve Levine
VP, Communication
Texas Medical Association
