Reports are regularly provided to the US Congress on the performance of the federally managed Medicare and Medicaid programs. Subsequent to the 2024 reports, Medscape surveyed its membership of physicians (medical doctors) to understand their perspective.
Medical doctors (MDs) in private practice in the USA play an important role in providing services to patients through the government run Medicare and Medicaid programs. Medicare provides health insurance coverage for persons 65 and older, while Medicaid covers people with limited income. With the demographic changes inherent in a maturing population, it is expected that Medicare will be covering more and more patients in the future.
In his article, Jon Mckenna looks into a recent Medscape survey among MDs. While some private medical practices do not participate in the program, surveys show that between 63-75% of MDs’ clients generally include >10% of patients covered by Medicare or Medicaid. Mckenna argues that the results show that improving reimbursement rates and streamlining the claims process could change providers’ perspective. Results also show that those surveyed were more ‘supportive’ of accepting increasing numbers of Medicare patients (persons 65 and older) than Medicaid (limited income).
