Replying to a message of bill swisher to Roy Witt:

 bs> On 1/4/2010 11:15 AM, Roy Witt wrote:

 >> A Medicare patient can go to any specialist recommended by
 >> his regular doctor. A PPO or HMO patient must use the
 >> insurance company's plan doctors and specialists.

 bs> While I agree with HMO, at least that's how it worked when I
 bs> was with  Kaiser back in the 70's.  My current health
 bs> insurance only "penalizes"  us for not using a PPO.

 bs> As an aside for the medicare.  In Anchorage the newspaper
 bs> reported less  than 80 GP's willing to take "new" medicare
 bs> patients, and most were  willing to grandfather their "old"
 bs> patients in if they could.

Looks like Medicare's dirty little secret is finally getting out.  Providers
have quietly been dropping out of the Medicare system for years - more
rapidly and in greater numbers in recent months.

 bs>  The  excuse was that medicare
 bs> payments were inadequate for them to maintain  their
 bs> practice, and as you know medicare providers aren't allowed
 bs> to  directly bill patients to cover that deficit.

That's not an excuse, it's a reason.  If the providers can't cover their costs
they go bankrupt.  Medicare doesn't cover the cost of treating elderly patients -
and hasn't for years.  If the providers go bankrupt then nobody gets care.

You want to get providers back into the Medicare system?  Simply require that
Medicare pay the bills, as presented, in full and within 30 days of presentation.
As it is now, Medicare disallows all the charges it thinks it can get away with,
writes itself humongous discounts the remaining charges, and hangs on to the
money for at least 90 days.  In fact, require that *all* insurors do that - pay in
full within 30 days, no discounting.  You'll see the overall - and individual - cost
of care come down.

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