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Politics : A US National Health Care System? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: J_F_Shepard who wrote (36295)	4/29/2014 9:25:39 PM
From: Lane3	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 42652

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/11/28/us/Shortage-of-Doctors-Accepting-Medicaid.html First of all, that data set is three years old. Second, it is not just PCP's. As I have mentioned on at least several occasions, specialists don't have the same problem as PCP's. An ortho guy, for example, treats someone for a sports injury and then doesn't see that patient again for years, if ever. He will take new patients because most of his business is one-off so there is a lot of turnover. Likewise a radiologist, who goes in for a picture and that's that. When a PCP takes on a Medicaid patient, he's stuck with that patient pretty much for as long as the patient wants to stay. When a PCP takes on a new one, his volume of Medicaid patients increases. When a specialist takes one on, that patient is more likely replacing someone who has completed his course of treatment. That's not true of all specialties, of course, but the bulk of those not accepting new Medicaid patients will be PCP's. What the specialists do is borderline irrelevant to the issue.