Tuesday’s Post 11.29.11 –  Archives of Internal Medicine indicates that many patients with health insurance coverage are increasingly being turned away by doctors citing delays in Insurance Company reimbursements that is outpaced by the rates of medical spending and  administrative complexities associated with private health insurance. The research was led by a medical doctor at New York-Presbyterian Hospital and an assistant professor at Weill Cornell Medical College. Physicians have turned away patients with their own private health insurance coverage as far back as 2005. Access to health care is becoming difficult to insured patients and this could present new challenges to Doctors with Practices of all sizes. It’s surprising that doctors are increasingly rejecting patients with private health insurance policies, compared to those with Medicare. Considering that the medical industry has been for long dissatisfied with Medicare, the general expectation has been an increased rejection of Medicare patients. But to the contrary, this hasn’t been the case as doctors turned away only a fair number of these patients. The data used in this research was obtained from the Center for Disease Control and the National Center for Health Statistics.  Among the findings of the study, was an increasingly declining number of patients with insurance being rejected by doctors. In the period staring from 2005 to 2008, 3 % of Medicare patients were rejected by doctors. In the same period, the number of Medicaid patients accepted by doctors also declined steadily. The patients on private insurance registered a higher rate of rejection by doctors. The legislation of enhanced benefits and rights by the United States of America government through Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 will greatly help many Americans secure better health insurance services.

Health advocacy groups and the general consumers to be wary of this emerging trend and urges them to direct more effort in working towards improved access and quality in medical health care. She says that at this time in the history of America when near-universal coverage is in the wings, quality of access care by patients could suffer due to the current conflicts between medical industry professionals and the insurance industry. Various players now need to find ways ofdealing with these conflicts.

-Mike

Michael E. Dortch
President &  Managing Agent
InsureDirect.com
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