Survey Shows Physicians Limiting Practice Access for Medicare and Medicaid Patients

More than 50 percent of physicians have limited access to their practice for Medicare patients or are planning to do so in the future according to a recent survey commissioned by the Physicians Foundation. In addition, 26 percent of survey respondents have stopped seeing additional Medicaid patients at this time. Physicians cite rising operating costs, time constraints, and diminishing reimbursement as the primary reasons for not accepting additional Medicare and Medicaid patients.

The survey also indicates that physician morale is low with more than 75 percent of respondents being pessimistic about the future of the medical profession. Physicians are not uniform in their opinions, with younger, female, employed, and primary care physicians being generally more positive about the profession.

The survey, conducted this spring by Merritt Hawkins via email, was sent to more than 600,000 physicians across the United States with 13,575 responding.