General Practitioners leaving the field

I was aware of some GP's not taking on new Medicare patients and that many were not considering any Medicaid patients, but I was surprised at the numbers that are leaving general practice for work in hospitals (become hospitalists) or even retainer practice or another term “concierge medicine”. An article in a southern Iowa paper stated that in the area about 40 percent were not taking on new medicare patients.

Then to see a sign on the counter of my doctors office scared me. I am not new for medicare and I asked him what his intentions were. He would only say that for now he was not accepting new Medicare patients.

This is being promoted by our insurance industry and reinforced by our Medicare system. Our congressional people are not opening their minds to what is happening, even though they have been told. When we the people finally wake up and start making demands because we do not have medical care, it may be too late and the costs will be astronomical.

Everyone, including myself have been complaining about the fraternization of our doctors with the people of big pharma (be sure to read the comments at this link). As a result, now I fear that we are driving them to cozy up to insurance executives as doctors are seeing more prior authorization requests forcing much more expensive drugs in place of the cheaper and just as effective, generics.