Bloomberg.com reported Thursday that the Mayo Clinic in Arizona will stop accepting Medicare patients at one of its primary-care clinics in Arizona, saying the U.S. government pays too little. The Mayo family clinic in Glendale, Arizona, will accept cash payments for services, but will no longer accept Medicare.
According to the article:
"The Mayo organization had 3,700 staff physicians and scientists and treated 526,000 patients in 2008. It lost $840 million last year on Medicare, the government's health program for the disabled and those 65 and older, Mayo spokeswoman Lynn Closway said.
"Mayo's hospital and four clinics in Arizona, including the Glendale facility, lost $120 million on Medicare patients last year, Yardley said. The program's payments cover about 50 percent of the cost of treating elderly primary-care patients at the Glendale clinic, he said."
The article also states that many family doctors may also refuse to take Medicare patients because of the low reimbursement rates. As Congress discusses a healthcare bill that will make major cuts in Medicare, this is one possible consequence of healthcare reform that needs to be examined closely.
This is not officially called healthcare rationing, but that's what it is. The currently proposed healthcare bill is very damaging to elderly healthcare in this country.
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