Physicians are voicing their concerns about the formula used to pay on claims to Medicare. Dr. Kevin Hubbard, an oncologist in Kansas City, says doctors like him provide care largely to senior citizens, and he’s seeing reimbursement for certain drug treatments and treatments continue to decrease.
He says about 10,000 new patients are joining the system daily, and that’s expected to happen for the next several years. With that kind of burden on a system that’s already struggling, he says, it’s sure to collapse.
He says the mathematical formula used to decide how medicare funds are divied up is flawed. Hubbard says he has been talking with Missouri’s Congressional delegates about the problem, and how it can be fixed.
And he says it’s not only doctors who are being forced to take less in reimbursements. He says vital drug treatments are continually going uncovered, many of them lifesaving, such as certain chemotherapies.
He likens the system to a pie, where the slices to feed everyone keep getting thinner and thinner.