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Majority of doctors expect the quality of health care to decline
April 12, 2010
Two new studies show doctors are increasingly pessimistic about the impact of Obama’s new health care legislation on their ability to practice medicine, and some may even leave the practice of medicine because of it.
In the annual athenahealth and Sermo Physician Sentiment Index (PSI), 59% percent of doctors said they expect the quality of health care to decline over the next five years.
While Obama continues his claims that this legislation will lower the cost of health care, over 50% of doctors disagree, saying they do not believe government involvement in medicine will reduce costs or improve outcomes.
Doctors are also concerned about getting paid by insurers, Medicaid, and Medicare. Over 92% say the current reimbursement systems are incredibly burdensome and, with over 16 million additional Americans now covered by Medicaid under the new law, they can expect the process to get much worse.
According to the Medicus Firm, a medical recruitment company, doctors will exit their career field as ObamaCare begins to take effect. This as The Bureau of Labor Statistics expects demand for doctors to grow 22% over the next 10 years.
Medicus’s Physician Survey: Health Reform’s Impact on Physician Supply and Quality of Medical Care polled physicians from across the country in a variety of specialties and practice sizes. Their findings included these sobering statistics about doctors’ responses to Obama’s so-called health care reform:
- 30% of doctors plan to retire early or leave the medical field
- 31.5% expect the quality of their practice to decline
- 33% expect a drop in career satisfaction
- Nearly 40% believe their incomes and practice revenue to decrease
Perhaps most importantly, the Medius survey found 63% of physicians favored a more gradual, targeted approach to health reform, the same approaching Republicans have been championing from the beginning. Obama’s new legislation not only ignored the will of the American people but it shut out of the debate the individuals most qualified to offer substantive health care reform ideas, physicians. And as a result, as these physicians now leave the medical field, access to care will be restricted, not increased.
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