Doctors work more, but reimbursement does not follow the pace, the report finds

Diving brief:

• Doctors work more than ever, but reimbursement does not increase in tandem. It is a disturbing inadequacy that could result in problems with access to patients throughout the line, according to a new report.
• The productivity of doctors, measured by a metric of the quantity of work in the provision of a specific service, has increased by 11% in the past two years, according to the report of the Kaufman Hall Council.
• However, patient income for each relative work value unit dropped 7% during this period – and compensation for providers per unit of relative work value has decreased by 2%, Kaufman Hall revealed.

Diving insight:

Doctors ring warning bells for years of an unbearable refund.

According to the American Medical Association, the reimbursement of health insurance for doctors’ services fell from 29% from 2001 to 2024 when adjusting inflation. The reimbursement deficit stems from the fact that the payment of Medicare to doctors is not adjusted for inflation, and the adjustments from one year to the next must be neutral budgetary. The regulators claim that this prevents a refund at the level that doctors say they need.

Meanwhile, Medicaid levels for doctors’ services are even lower than in health insurance – and a higher reimbursement of commercially insured patients often does not make the difference, according to doctors.

The reimbursement pressures recently coincided with high inflation and an increase in labor expenditure, which led to the margins of victory for the practices of doctors. This has led a lot to sell, often to major business buyers such as hospitals or insurance companies, or close completely. Other doctors look more at expensive elective care or go to concierge medicine to encourage patients richer in their practices. But in any case, access to doctors shrinks for many Americans, according to experts.

“Revenues have increased because doctors and service providers work more, but data also shows that reimbursement does not follow the pace. In the coming months, if more patients lose insurance coverage, this trend will probably worsen,” said Matthew Bates, Managing Director and Head of the Doctor’s Service Service.

About 10 million Americans are expected to lose health insurance coverage following the GOP GOP Taxation and GOP policies, adopted last month. 4 million people should lose coverage if more generous subsidies for the plans of the affordable care law expires at the end of this year, according to the estimates of the non -partisan score goalkeeper, the Congressional Budget Office.

Certain Congress legislators have expressed their support for the reform of the doctor’s reimbursement in hearings and in public letters. A policy, to link the annual Medicare reimbursement updates, to a measure of cost inflation, is supported by doctors’ associations, an advisory group influence Congress and legislators on both sides of the aisle. (A bipartite group of representatives presented a bill in the House two years ago by changing, but it is seen little movement.)

A recent CMS rule revising the doctors’ payment system includes an increase in the basic 2.5% medicine rates for doctors next year. But other policies in good standing mean that its impact on reimbursement will vary madly based on the specialty and site of practice of a doctor. As such, he was met with mixed reactions from doctors.