Red:
I'm aware I can't force you to see context, reason and facts.
- Seriously? You've summarily rejected my analysis while the data to which you refer is:
- Not representative of the whole of the medical doctor profession, and
- Even older than is the data I referenced. The importance of the temporal aspect of the data is readily seen in the remarks of the second above-linked article's content.
- Please identify the methodological flaws you deem extant in my approach to arriving at 2.7%.
Blue:
Okay.
Pink:
Per the reference you cited, the 20% figure you cited pertains to
family practice doctors, not doctors:
- "...the proportion of family doctors who accepted new Medicare patients last year [2012], 81 percent, was down from 83 percent in 2010."
According to the
2015 Active Physicians in the Largest Specialties survey, family practice doctors are the most populous specialty among doctors; however, they do not form a majority (or even near it) of the M.D. profession. Using that survey's figures rather than the ones I calculated from the Statista reference source's data, there were, in 2015, some 860K doctors in the US. (That 860K figure is slightly more than the one I calculated; the 2.7% rate I calculated is an even more "generous" than is warranted.)
- Of the 860K doctors, ~111K, 12% of all active doctors, are family practice physicians.
- Using the 20% figure your reference source indicates for non-Medicare accepting family practice doctors, one arrives at ~22,200 family practice doctors who don't accept Medicare. That figure comports favorably with the 22K figure I cited in my above-shown post, thus supporting my earlier assertion of 2.7% and my assertion here that 2.7% is a generous estimate.
- The preceding analysis suggests that it's largely family practice physicians who opt out of Medicare.
- Obviously, doctors who exclusively perform non-medically-necessary procedures -- cosmetic dentistry and cosmetic plastic surgery, for example -- don't accept Medicare because Medicare won't pay for such services.
Tan:
Yes, that is the reason some doctors have cited.
From your reference article:
Say what you want, but I'm not feeling sorry for anyone who gripes that they can't make ends meet on at least $232/hour ($1740/day/~454K/yr). That a doctor cannot "make ends meet" on $232/hr strikes me as a business model or personal financial irresponsibility problem, not a Medicare-reimbursement problem.