Doctors say Medicare cuts will hurt patients

By Stephanie Beasley

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Medicare patients will likely have a harder time seeing a doctor if proposed cuts to the program are implemented, according to a survey of doctors released by the American Medical Association on Monday.

Congress is expected to cut Medicare, the state-federal health insurance plan for the elderly, by 10 percent in 2008.

The AMA has launched a campaign to lobby U.S. lawmakers to block it and instead provide a 1.7 percent increase to help cover rising costs doctors are facing.

"This cut will severely impact physicians' ability to care for Medicare patients," Cecil Wilson, a Florida physician and chairman of the AMA's board, told reporters, calling the situation a "looming crisis".

Some 14 percent of the nearly 9,000 doctors surveyed said they would stop providing care to Medicare patients, 60 percent would limit the number of new patients they would accept and 40 percent would shift services to hospitals.

Just over half surveyed said they would have to cut staff.

Wilson also warned the Medicare system will be further stressed because "the Baby Boomers will age into Medicare in just three years." The program covers about 43 million people who are disabled or aged 65 and older.

Jeff Nelligan, a spokesman for the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said he doubted this would occur and questioned the accuracy of the survey.

"The supply of physicians providing services to Medicare beneficiaries has also more than kept pace with growth in the beneficiary population in recent years," Nelligan said in a statement.

This is even though reimbursement stayed flat or even fell slightly, he said.

Wilson did acknowledge that a 4 percent cut to Medicare in 2002 did not have a major impact on the health care system.

"That one time clearly did not result in a catastrophe," he said. "What we are reporting to you is what physicians say they will do. No one knows until it happens."

Wilson said the group was looking for lawmakers to sponsor legislation to block the 10 percent cut and that the AMA had budgeted $2 million for publicity efforts focused on building support for it.

"One of the encouraging things about this subject is that everyone agrees that we have a disaster in the making," he said.

The AMA represents 250,000 doctors nationwide and it said the Medicare survey generated almost double the number of responses than received in past AMA questionnaires of members and non-members.