curious about the system

[Jani]

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I have a question who has experience in the private health care system. The physician who I am working for is going bankrupt, atleast that's how he makes it sound like.. I do not know what the reason is and am trying to figure out what could be the cause..

Could it be because of the fact he has membership with atleast 8 Insurance companies instead of 2/3 ( He litteraly has all the possible insurances )

 

[Jim Picotte]

A decent editorial can be found here. A good summary is that since 1991 the reimbursment rate for physicians has gone down 19%. Of course all your office staff would like to get yearly raises and the cost of doing business has gone up 47% in that same time period. If you have a patient population that includes a lot of Medicaid then you're pretty much screwed. It's pretty sad when an office has to hire a person or a group of people just to file claims with the insurance company in order to get reimbursed. With the rising cost of insurance and decreasing reimbursement a lot of docs have just called it quits. The only way to really make up for it is in volume and that's not satisfying to a lot of people. I've heard of several groups going bankrupt or quitting but they're usually in the low income areas where they see a high amount of medicaid and medicare patients. The malpractice rates are higher in poor areas as well so it's a double whammy. If you're in an area with a high amount of private insurance then you can do pretty well.

http://www.ama-assn.org/sci-pubs/amnews/amn_03/edca1006.htm