This is where we're heading. Medicare Services will further restrict the circumstances under which imaging can be used. Imaging techniques which, though expensive, save lives.
So, we'll have Medicare and Obama's Government Option saying, "Sorry, no CT for you!", while your physician says, "I think we ought to get a CT". This triggers a highly undesirable outcome --
- Private insurers, trying to compete with the bottomless pit of money from the government, will have to follow suit and quit paying for imaging procedures;
- Imaging equipment manufacturers will have to say, "Hey, if they're not going to buy Proton Scanners (or whatever), we can't develop them or build them;
So, not only does our health care suffer from not having access to imaging when needed, future innovations will not develop because there is no money in it.
This same scenario plays out time and again -- drugs and drug manufacturers, medical equipment of all kinds, and of course, physicians. Physicians are too expensive, so we'll just send you to a PA or NP.
Quality suffers. Medicare is calling the shots.
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The fight over Medicare reimbursements for medical imaging is typical of the intensified lobbying.
Use of the procedures grew to 182 million in 2007, according to an industry study. The Obama administration cites figures showing Medicare's price tag for the services doubled from $7 billion in 2000 to $14 billion in 2006.
Though that spending dropped to $12 billion in 2007 as cuts enacted by Congress took effect, the administration says overly generous reimbursement rates and other factors encourage doctors to overuse imaging equipment. Obama has proposed reducing the Medicare payments by $5.9 billion over the next decade — a plan doctors and equipment makers say is based on flawed, outdated data.
"This is exactly where medicine is going" because the scans diagnose diseases and save money, said Timothy Trysla, executive director of the Access to Medical Imaging Coalition, which represents doctors, manufacturers and patients. "Our biggest concern is Medicare's use of these tools is slowed." |
