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I'm fully aware of that and it's ramifications on a personal and policy level. My wife works almost exclusively with medicare patients at a nursing home and gets paid directly from Medicare instead of from a 3rd party. They have a VERY hard time finding people to do it, my wife only does because it's a flexible schedule and pays better than working at a hospital. If the cuts are structured to pay much less to her she's likely to simply take a different job leaving the nursing home without a PT. It could still be argued that it's a net positive instead but simply taking it away from providers doesn't mean there is no change to the patient. |
I realize this isn't always the case, but I also work with many Medicare recipients and many non-Medicare clients as well, and I get paid the same either way (I should also note that I work in mental health, not physical health). The fact of the matter is that there are too many people on Medicare for providers to not accept it, and if they don't like how they're getting paid they're going to have to change their business model to be more results focused and less "number of tests performed"/"number of doctor's visits" focused. Healthcare in the US is incredibly inefficient in how it spends its money, and Obamacare is going to force it to be more efficient. I see that as a good thing.