Why We Choose To Opt Out of Medicare #doctor

Dr. Harris: Even after 15 years of being an opted out physician, there's still a great deal of confusion about what does being an opted out physician mean and what does that mean for patients and certainly some of the other doctors in the area would like you to believe that opted out physicians do not want to see patients on Medicare or other government programs, this is far from the case. I and Dr. Broome happy to see Medicare patients. In fact, about a third of my practice, are patients who are straight Medicare.
Dr. Broome: Having been in Medicare for the majority of my career, I can speak for both sides of the story here. When you accept Medicare, you have to play by their reporting rules, and you have to go by their guidelines. Otherwise, they're not going to cover the visits, and they're not going to pay for the care that you need as the patient. In order to do that, the only way you can succeed is to run a factory and you guys have probably been to a place like that where you're just a number, you wait three hours to be seen for five minutes, and you really don't get any communication. We do not want that model, we've been in that model, we burn out we don't like that. Our goal for being in medicine is to develop relationships with people and make a difference in their lives, through surgery and through non-surgical things too. By opting out of Medicare that's freed up our hands from the guidelines that are placed on us and allowed us to focus on you, the patient, and providing the utmost quality of care.
Dr. Harris: And Medicare, though will pay for any lab service that is not directly to the physician. So if an opted out physician brings a patient to the hospital, Medicare does pay the hospital. They do pay for the X-rays, they pay for the laboratory, they pay for the anesthesiologist, if there's an implant they pay for the implant, cover everything except the doctor. Now between the opted out physician and the patient, it becomes a fee for service basis. The approach that Dr. Broome and I take is we try to make our fees affordable so that most people can afford what we do.

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