Thursday, December 2, 2010

Health Reform and the Decline of Physician Private Practice

A recent report from Merritt Hawkins discusses how ObamaCare will "will dramatically change how physicians conduct business and likely will mean the end of full-time, independent, private practitioners".

The full report can be found here (PDF version).

The report notes:
[R]esults from a national survey of 2,400 physicians, only 26% of whom said they would continue practicing the way they are in the next one to three years. The remaining 74% said they would retire, work part-time, close their practices to new patients, become employed and/or seek non-clinical jobs.
The physicians who remain in practice will increasingly be herded into large "accountable care organizations" which will require them to practice according to government "cost-effectiveness" guidelines. This trend has already been noted by the New York Times, and will accelerate in the next few years.

If you loved the "managed care" of the 1980s, including the denial of service to save money, then you'll love the new "Government Managed Care version 2.0"!